New Book "Hacking the Human Mind" Unpacks Method1's Founding Approach

Marketing’s newest must-read reveals the behavioral science behind the world’s best brands

Why do some campaigns convert brilliantly while others—equally clever, equally funded—underperform? The answer lies in understanding the emotional triggers and mental shortcuts that actually drive human decision making.

Method1 Founder and President MichaelAaron Flicker and Senior Behavioral Science Advisor Richard Shotton explore the power of behavioral principles in their new book, Hacking The Human Mind: The Behavioral Science Secrets Behind 17 of the World's Best Brands, now available on Amazon.com.

While plenty of marketers have heard of behavioral economics, fewer know how to apply it expertly when the brief hits their desk. This book changes that, translating rigorous research into practical strategies that move needles—aka product at shelf, short and long-term.

"It doesn't matter if you are marketing bourbon, socks or even politicking, understanding the science behind consumer behavior is a marketer's best secret weapon," Flicker explained in Fast Company earlier this year. "We take academically rigorous, double-blind studies and apply them to everything we do."

The payoffs?

• Brands that both convert better and command higher prices with fewer touches
• Campaigns that deliver more impact without bigger budgets
• Creative that works harder because it's grounded in how people behave, not how marketers assume they will

"Using behavioral science gives us a leg up because it makes everything we do more likely to be successful," Flicker noted. "You can have confidence in what we do because it's backed by science."

As CEO of XenoPsi Ventures, Flicker has built many businesses grounded in behavioral science beyond Method1, including Function Growth and Z/Axis Strategies. Shotton is the founder of Astroten and author of bestselling books The Choice Factory and The Illusion of Choice, which explore how behavioral biases shape consumer decisions, and he has advised brands from Google to BrewDog.

Flicker founded the Consumer Behavior Lab (CBL) and co-hosts its bi-weekly "Behavioral Science for Brands" podcast with Shotton. Both have spent years exploring how academic behavioral studies apply to brands and sharing these insights with marketers across the U.S.

Their book represents the latest fortification of Method1’s identity—an agency dedicated to demystifying behavioral principles as a thought leader while applying them to make brands irresistible.

Method1: Built on the Science of What Works

Method1 was named after quick System 1 thinking, identified by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman as the driver of most human decisions. The agency builds on the CBL's behavioral insights and decades of academic research—creating campaigns that convert because they're grounded in how people actually choose.

This approach proves especially powerful in the indulgence category.

While emotion and mental shortcuts can ease any purchase decision, indulgence brands face a unique challenge: their consumers must negotiate inner permission to grant themselves moments of joy. Behavioral triggers bypass this conscious consideration entirely, creating the cognitive ease that can make choosing an indulgence brand feel effortless.

Method1’s strategic brand redesign for Elijah Craig bourbon, for example—guided by behavioral science rather than aesthetics alone—removed frictions along the path to purchase to drive a 7x sales increase.

The book reveals the actionable strategies Method1 applies across examples like this one, whether readers need to:

• Reinvigorate a legacy brand
• Launch a challenger that punches above its weight
• Find new category entry points and unlock growth

The best part? Effective doesn't have to mean complicated or prohibitively expensive. No need to risk hard-won equity or slow the momentum of existing campaigns.

As Flicker stressed while announcing the book on a CBL podcast, "One learning from behavioral science is that sometimes very small interventions can have a huge effect."

Order Your Behavioral Advantage

Hacking The Human Mind is available now on Amazon.com.

For weekly insights from both authors, follow the "Behavioral Science for Brands" podcast from the Consumer Behavior Lab.

To see behavioral science in action making indulgence brands irresistible, explore Method1's work.