Product Description

A customer revolution is afoot, making a fundamental change in how people purchase and enjoy products and services. This revolution is fueled by millions of customers who are imposing their will, tastes, and desires to force a transformation in the way companies produce and sell. In order to win in this revolution, companies have to connect with their customers' imaginations. They have to surprise and challenge them. Companies have to sell dreams.

No one has been better at the business of selling dreams than Ferrari. The company has achieved an unparalleled position in the business world with a product renowned for its excellence. But Ferrari is also a master at selling dreams.

Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni, President and CEO of Ferrari North America, shows in this book how any company can create a dream product or service. Yes, there are companies, such as Ferrari, that focus solely on dream products and services. But there are also companies in all industries whose products can ignite their customers' dreams. With a single dream product, these companies can achieve blockbuster successes that establish their brands for years to come.

Searching for answers beyond the realm of business, Selling Dreams reveals the principles of "dreamketing" in which brand management is elevated to an art form, compelling artists, market sociologists, and executives to conjure up images that not only take hold of the collective customer consciousness but also attract lasting interest in products and services that will set tomorrow's trends. Longinotti-Buitoni examines how event the most unlikely products -- cigars, athletic shoes, cosmetics, and even our own bodies as products of the fitness industry have become the ultimate dream products.

While most businesses have reached saturation points, the business of selling dreams has no limits. Companies can no longer count on inflation and interest-rate decreases, cost-cutting, or restructuring to sustain higher earning growth. They will have to boost their pricing power by heightening customers' perception of their products' value. Longinotti-Buitoni demonstrates how entrepreneurs and managers from all fields of business can avoid the commodity trap by learning a great deal from those who market products and services intended to fulfill customers' unlimited material fantasies.

Selling Dreams is an invaluable tool for anyone in the business world, and its practical step-by-step marketing plans will appeal to anyone who wants to stay ahead of the competition in the crowded, fast-paced, and ever-evolving marketplace of the coming 2000s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #789278 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 335 pages

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

Customer Reviews

Captivating!
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. - Marcia Yudkin, Ph.D., author of Six Steps to Free Publicity, Persuading on Paper and other books

A Good Read!
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?

Selling Dreams : How to Make Any Product Irresistible
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.