People Buy Brands Not Companies

Ronald N. Borrieci (Embry‐Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA)

Journal of Product & Brand Management

ISSN: 1061-0421

Article publication date: 2 November 2010

683

Keywords

Citation

Borrieci, R.N. (2010), "People Buy Brands Not Companies", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 19 No. 7, pp. 518-519. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421011086955

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Self‐promotion is a marketing tool that has been used for centuries. From the earliest pre‐civilization traders to today's “info commercials,” self‐promotion is a tried‐and‐true marketing tactic.

Now in 2010, we have Dr Tantillo's new book, People Buy Brands Not Companies, self‐ promoting his marketing philosophy about branding products, people, and services.

In thirteen chapters and one‐hundred‐and‐seventeen pages, Dr Tantillo explains his basic marketing concept (marketing is about making products that help buyers) and gives us examples of how following “his philosophy” works – whether you are selling Pringles or political candidates.

The book begins with Dr Tantillo's welcoming chapter (contains the book's main premise – people buy products that help), moves to chapter 2 which contains his glossary of marketing terms (self‐selected) and then subsequently covers such diverse topics as Super Bowl advertising, Proctor & Gamble, Pringles, Warren Buffett, and newspapers.

Written in Dr Tantillo's folksy conversational style, there are some marketing “truisms” found throughout the book. For example, on page 26 we read a very important truism: “marketing is real and the best marketing is an active engagement with reality.”

Another marketing “truism” can be found when Dr Tantillo offers that “ real marketing is built around a sophisticated and living dyad – a two‐dimensional relationship between seller and buyer that is predicated on satisfying needs on both sides” (p. 53). True, but hardly new information.

Dr Tantillo also says that “a successful brand is always reaching out to its Target Market (his emphasis), observing and listening to what it wants and needs and then making brand ‘course corrections’ both large and small in response” (p. 68). Again, true, but the concept of connecting with your target market is not unknown to business executives.

But my favorite observation is when Dr Tantillo says that “people will rarely tell you what they don't like about your brand, so you have to listen carefully to what they are saying and are not saying” (p. 79). A very insightful and astute observation by the author.

I have always believed that we marketers must do a better job finding the reasons behind the why people “didn't buy” as much as we do asking people “why they did buy”. Dr Tantillo quickly moves from a story about Apple, to how branding works for you in job interviews, to “how to” brand your wedding, to politics, to President Obama, the Democratic party, the Republican Party, and finally to key “public” figures such as Warren Buffet and Oprah Winfrey. Somehow, his “connection” across brands, products, services, and personalities seems a little trite and tends to minimize his advice with its breath.

It would seem that Dr Tantillo would have us believe that his philosophy works on all marketing challenges with equal success. I found his approach – offering simplistic answers to potentially complicated problems – often a little too easy to believe and accept.

Nevertheless, somewhere around page 79 to 80, his book stops providing marketing information and advice and turns into espousing political positions.

But perhaps, the most disappointing feature of People Buy Brands Not Companies, is Dr Tantillo's failure to provide us with the proper documentation, source material, research findings, and other empirical evidence that form the basis of his comments, claims, and stories. Trained as a clinical psychologist, he clearly understands the importance of good research documentation. However, in People Buy Brands Not Companies, there are no footnotes, notations, bibliography, indexes, or other empirical data, which one can use to review and to corroborate Dr Tantillo's premises.

Dr Tantillo is a good storyteller. Reading this book, one can only imagine how enjoyable it must be listening to one of his radio show or lectures. If only he would have provided us the empirical evidence necessary to support his interesting, but anecdotal stories!

So, who should read this book? Well, if you like a quick read, an “info‐commercial” quasi‐marketing psychology in print, then this book is for you. Dr Tantillo certainly makes some valid marketing points and offers some sound marketing advice, but you are going to miss the “how” he came to offer this advice.

If you are looking for marketing help to turn your brand around or to increase sales and profits, or if you are launching a new product or service, I would check out other more empirically based sources of information first.

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