From Like to Love

In Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It, Oliver Wyman consultant Adrian Slywotzky argues that to make products magnetic, companies must painstakingly root out every hassle that gets in customers’ way and strive to understand exactly what triggers their interest and attention. “One of the most valuable lessons to be learned from talking to customers,” he writes, “is just how much our buying decisions are ruled by inertia, skepticism, sloth, habit, and indifferene.” Tapping into those—building products and services and companies that generate actual customer demand—is a tall order, but it can be done.