(FORTUNE Magazine) – Few brands achieve the cult status of Ferrari, but even lesser lights could benefit from marketing advice from that camp. Here it is. As North American president of Ferrari and part of the Buitoni pasta family, Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni knows a bit about consumer cravings--and he's distilled his insights into a new book, Selling Dreams: How to Make Any Product Irresistible (Simon & Schuster, $26). If you can look past a few exaggerations (such as the one in the tag line--dog food? toilet paper? irresistible?), the book is a good primer on bold marketing strategies. By analyzing success stories from Nike and Estee Lauder to Chateau Margaux, Buitoni examines how potent brands go from being simple products to icons that conjure an enviable lifestyle.

Using interviews with the likes of Revlon's George Fellows; Leo Hindery, president and CEO of AT&T's new broadband Internet venture; and Steve Florio, CEO of Conde Nast publications, Buitoni breaks down into seven ingredients the components of creating a covetable product. One example: "Companies must not fear the unconventional thinker: Spice up the board of directors with a multicultural mix of creative people, artists, and visionaries." Another: "A financial manager must not steer a company away from risk.... Without risks, there are no dreams."

Selling Dreams gives shape to some of the otherwise nebulous genius behind great brands. Buitoni's entertainingly European, luxury-centric perspective may not work for every product, but it does offer a refreshing change of pace: After all, how many business books offer up marketing advice from sources such as Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, not to mention Soren Kierkegaard's 1834 Diary of a Seducer: "To confuse poetry and reality, truth and romance"?

--Sue Zesiger