Selling Dreams: How to Make Any Product Irresistible [Hardcover]

Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni (Author), Kip Longinotti-Buitoni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999

This text explains the author's concept of "dream marketing", where brand management is elevated to an art form, requiring artists, market sociologists, and executives to conjur up images that take hold in the consumer's collective consciousness, and to attract interest in products and services.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni took over as CEO of Ferrari North America, the U.S. and Canada were in a recession, and he couldn't imagine people were inclined to spend their money on such an expensive, impractical car. Since then, Longinotti-Buitoni has changed his mind about a few things, including practicality. He believes the desire for a Ferrari comes from our dreams, not the part of our brain that balances the checkbook each month. Those same dreams fuel our desire for leisure time, Gucci couture, Gulfstream jets, beauty, exotic vacations.

These dreams have probably existed, he surmises, since Cro-Magnon people drew images of successful hunting expeditions and victorious battles on cave walls. Entrepreneurs in the business of selling dreams need to understand these dreams, and reinterpret the product in terms of its place in a human's fantasy world. And it's not all about selling stuff to people who appear in Vanity Fair--dreams can be marketed to the masses, too. Thus, the Volkswagen Beetle was a hippie dream of sharing something extraordinary with everyone; Levi's jeans are a working person's dream of striking gold (they were, after all, sold to the miners during the California gold rush); Nike sneakers are an inner-city kid's dream of overcoming his oppressive origins through athletic stardom. The best things in life may be free, but after reading Selling Dreams, you'll understand why we spend so much time fantasizing about the things we can't afford. And, if you're in business, you'll know better how to cash in on those fantasies. --Lou Schuler

From Booklist

In The Dream Society (1999), futurist Rolf Jensen predicts how the commercialization of emotion and "the coming shift from information to imagination will transform your business." Buitoni shows how "selling dreams" is already a reality as consumers eagerly buy $150 athletic shoes and $150,000 sports cars. Buitoni is president and CEO of Ferrari North America. This analysis of luxury marketing was originally done for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Lausanne, but Buitoni and his wife have adapted it here for a popular readership. Although the neologism is too contrived, he explains how "dreamarketing" taps into customers' emotions and imaginations and turns owning a product into a dream-fulfilling experience. With an eclectic array of examples drawn from sources ranging from antiquity to today's most upscale fashion magazines, Buitoni lays out a marketing plan that not only incorporates practical steps for "spark[ing] desire" but also allows a role for "intuition, perception, improvisation, sensation, and unstructured research." David Rouse

Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684850192
• ISBN-13: 978-0684850191
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,303,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating!, June 3, 2000

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Experienced seminar leader (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Selling Dreams: How to Make Any Product Irresistible (Hardcover)

By page 5, I was entranced by this book. In keeping with its theme, SELLING DREAMS looks at the role of luxury in our lives from the broadest possible perspective. It offers fascinating anecdotes from craftspeople who combine art and business in the realms of cars, movies, food and drink, watches, hotels and more. I was especially pleased to see the illuminating perspectives from great philosophers alongside shrewd business analysis and cultural insight. A very unusual and worthwhile book that I already plan to reread.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Selling Dreams : How to Make Any Product Irresistible, April 23, 2000

By 

Gina Hinds - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selling Dreams: How to Make Any Product Irresistible (Hardcover)

The writer has some great ideas as well as using some great analagies. One example that stood out in my mind, is the subject of lobster, you can buy it in the store in a plain paper covering or you can buy it in a fine restaurant and have it dressed up to the very finest. You need to be able to show people how the product you are selling will fulfill a dream that they have and not just smiply a purchase.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read!, August 28, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selling Dreams: How to Make Any Product Irresistible (Hardcover)

Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni's premise is that the best way to sell products is to tap into customers' emotional impulses, which can override their rational thinking. It's a good theory, as proven by how effectively the CEO of Ferrari North America used it in writing this book. As a reader, you can't help but get swept up in the pages of description of wondrous products from the likes of Ferrari, Tiffany, the Ritz and Cohiba. And when you do, it's easy to overlook the fact that the book is slightly repetitive and presents ideas that are far from radical. However, Longinotti-Buitoni's anecdotes about the development of the Ferrari brand name, as well as those of other high-end companies, are sure to delight marketing and advertising practitioners. We [...] recommend this book to professionals in those fields, who will find useful insights, especially in the excellent summaries that come toward the end of each chapter. A clear introduction and a well-executed concluding chapter also help clarify the ideas. There is probably more passion than substance to Selling Dreams, but in the end, isn't that what it's all about?