How the Desire Matrix Explains the Spread of Innovation

In the previous post, I used Valentine’s Day chocolate as a case study to introduce a hypothesis about how innovation spreads. This time, I’ll test that hypothesis against different examples: the pharmaceutical industry — known for its consistently high profit margins — and two historical cases: agricultural equipment loans and Gutenberg’s printing press.

Case Study 2: The Structure of the Prescription Drug Market

The same pattern appears clearly in the pharmaceutical industry.

• Physicians: I want to cure the patient in front of me and relieve their suffering → Quadrant 2
• Patients: I want the physician to treat my illness → Quadrant 3
• Pharmaceutical companies: I want to create a context in which physicians prescribe drugs to patients → Quadrant 4

A drug, as a product, is fundamentally something you take for yourself — a Quadrant 1 item. Yet the prescription drug market only works because the desires of these three parties form a chain.

Compare this to apparel: a manufacturer simply produces goods and sells them through retail. Structurally, it’s no different from chocolate sold in a supermarket outside of Valentine’s season. Prescription drugs, by contrast, require pharmaceutical companies to develop medications that meet physicians’ clinical expertise — and until a patent expires, companies can pursue profit under nationally regulated drug pricing. This structure is one of the key reasons the pharmaceutical industry sustains such high profit margins.

Note: The rise of generic drugs has begun to shift this dynamic in recent years — a topic I’d like to explore separately.

Case Study 3: The Introduction of Loans in the U.S. Agricultural Equipment Market

• Equipment manufacturers: I want to sell farm machinery to farmers → Quadrant 2
• Farmers: I want manufacturers to provide me with the machinery I need → Quadrant 3
• Banks: I want to create a context in which manufacturers deliver equipment to farmers through financing → Quadrant 4

In principle, selling agricultural equipment directly was always possible. The problem was price — machinery was simply too expensive for most farmers to afford outright. By introducing loans as a new “arena,” banks made it possible for farmers to secure financing based on their future earnings, enabling the transaction to happen.

This is a reminder that spreading innovation sometimes requires designing an entirely new arena — not just a better product.

Case Study 4: Gutenberg’s Printing Press

The technology behind movable type printing was largely complete before Gutenberg. The challenge was figuring out how to bring it to scale. Gutenberg refined the typefaces and binding, and brought a translated Bible to market as a commercial product. Mapped onto the four quadrants, the structure looks like this:

• The bookbinder (Gutenberg): I want consumers to read the books I’ve made → Quadrant 2
• Consumers: I want someone to produce reading material for me → Quadrant 3
• Printers: I want our printing technology to serve as the bridge between bookbinders and readers → Quadrant 4

The Core Structure: Desires Spanning Multiple Quadrants

Across these cases, a consistent pattern emerges. In practice, the ecosystems involved are far more complex — the pharmaceutical industry, for instance, also includes pharmacists, wholesalers, and others. But at the core of each ecosystem, I believe, lies a chain of desires spanning multiple quadrants.

At the same time, posts 2 and 3 emphasized the importance of customer orientation — and actually finding those desires is anything but easy. The key, it seems, lies in uncovering the desires of Quadrant 3: the passive desire to have someone else do something for you.

Finding Quadrant 3 Desires: Insight Marketing

In post 3, I explored human desire and introduced Evolutionary Marketing by Yu Suzuki, which investigates the fundamental drivers of human motivation. But the deeper question remains: how do you uncover Quadrant 3 desires — the passive wish to have others act on your behalf — especially when the person holding that desire isn’t even aware of it themselves?

The field that addresses this directly is insight marketing. One of its leading practitioners is DECOM Inc., a Japanese firm that has pioneered this approach and published several Japanese books on the subject:

• Insight Marketing — Takahiro Omatsu, Kiyoshi Usami, Hiroyuki Hata
• The Essence of “Want”: Finding the Hidden Psychology That Moves People — “Insight” — Takahiro Omatsu, Hiroyuki Hata
• True Desires Are Almost Always Unconscious — Takahiro Omatsu, Hiroyuki Hata

Each book goes into practical methodology in depth, and free courses are apparently available as well. If this resonates with you, I’d encourage you to check them out.