Bigger Than Brand Love: How Irresistibility Beats Affinity

Every time I go to the hardware store, I tell myself I'm just picking up a few things—maybe some screws, a new drill bit, nothing more. And yet, without fail, I find myself walking out with a mini can of Pringles from the checkout aisle.

I'm not there for snacks. I didn't plan to buy chips. But somehow, that can of Pringles makes its way into my hands, into the bag, into my car and eventually into my stomach.

This isn't a rational decision. It's an emotional response–one engineered to happen automatically. The emotion isn't limited to feeling good about the brand; it's about feeling compelled to act. And that's exactly why some brands sell better than others.

Consumers don't always buy the brands they love most. They buy the ones they can't resist.

The brands that thrive—especially in indulgence categories like spirits, snacks, wine and chocolate—work with emotional triggers that lead to intuitive, automatic decision making.

These brands are chosen. Over and over again, often without a second thought … and even if the consumer feels something more for some other product.

What Consumers Love Isn't Always What They Choose

For decades, marketers have pursued brand affinity as the holy grail. We measure it, track it, celebrate improvements in it. But here's the uncomfortable truth: high affinity scores don't guarantee purchase.

Let's get clear on affinity vs. irresistibility—how they’re different and what they can (or can’t) achieve.

What is brand affinity?

Affinity is the emotional connection people feel toward a brand—their sense of alignment with its values, their perception of its personality and the positive associations they have with it. Brand affinity is what marketers measure by assessing consumer agreement with statements like "This is a brand for people like me" or "I feel good about this brand."

Countless marketers, fully aware that not all consumer decision making is rational, turn to building brand affinity to drive more choice. Their standard playbook includes:

• Creating brand experiences and storytelling designed to stir feelings
• Highlighting company values
• Building brand communities or tribes
• Making the consumer experience as delightful as possible

These are worthy pursuits—but they primarily operate in the conscious, considered part of the brain. They build emotional connections while still requiring consumers to think about and evaluate your brand. To put some cognitive work in before choosing you.

What is brand irresistibility?

Irresistibility is a brand's ability to trigger intuitive choice—how easily it comes to mind in purchase situations, how effortlessly it's chosen and how naturally it becomes the default option.

Grounded in proven principles of behavioral science, it both drives conversion efficiency and creates a brand premium. Fewer marketing touches required to generate a sale; greater consumer willingness to pay more.

Irresistibility targets the automatic brain, the one that responds to triggers in an instant. In addition to creating feelings about your brand, irresistibility makes choosing it the path of least cognitive resistance. It's not about being loved after careful consideration; it's about being chosen without consideration at all.

The difference between the two is profound, with big implications for brands that seek, first and foremost, conversion vs. affection.

The correlation between affinity metrics and sales is famously inconsistent, varying widely by category, campaign execution and any number of external factors like cultural context.

Consumers can genuinely love your brand story, admire your values and have warm fuzzy feelings about your heritage—and still look right past you on the shelf.

Why? Because purchase decisions mostly aren’t made in the rational, reflective brain.

People Don't Think as Much as We Think They Do

Traditional marketers like to believe that consumers carefully weigh their options, that they make decisions based on values, storytelling and emotional benefits. This is why they see building brand affinity as so important. Add an emotional layer to a rational appeal and you can’t go wrong—right?

But as Richard Shotton (senior behavioral science partner and co-founder of Method1’s Consumer Behavior Lab) explains in his book The Illusion of Choice, the vast majority of purchase decisions are driven by mental shortcuts that combine emotions with urges.

Faced with countless options, people don't analyze. They act. They rely on emotion-driven impulses, habits, mental nudges, environmental cues and FOMO to make choices quickly and with minimal effort.

Just look at Liquid Death—canned water in a category dominated by plastic bottles, purity messaging and images of pristine nature. The brand engineered irresistibility by mastering the Von Restorff Effect—our hardwired tendency to notice what stands out.

Liquid Death’s beer-inspired cans, skull logos and “Murder Your Thirst” tagline have led innumerable marketing outlets to proclaim, “They won by breaking all the rules!” In fact, they followed the right ones, just from a completely different game.

This is the beauty and power of behavioral science. It harnesses emotion rather than simply creating it. It empowers brands to align their marketing with how human beings actually make their choices—not how traditional marketing assumes they will.

The Secret to Irresistibility: Embedding Behavioral Science in Every Step of the Journey

So what makes a brand irresistible rather than merely loved? Application of behavioral principles that fit your consumer and your indulgence brand—from awareness to purchase and beyond.

Consider these five essentials for becoming your consumer’s automatic choice:

1. ANTICIPATION: Building Desire Before the Shelf

Ever felt a craving before you even saw the product? That’s no accident, it’s behavioral science at work.

One of the most powerful drivers of consumer action is anticipation—the idea that the build-up to an experience is just as important as the experience itself.

Episode 48 of “Behavioral Science for Brands” (official podcast of the Consumer Behavior Lab) explored this idea through a simple but telling observation: when people imagine consuming a product, their brains trigger the same emotional response and reward as actually consuming it.

That means the brands that win don't just sell their product. They sell the moment before the moment of joy:

• A whiskey brand that focuses on the sound of the pour, the slow swirl in the glass, the first sip at the end of a long day isn't just selling taste—it's selling anticipation
• A chocolate brand that highlights the snap of the bar, the slow melt on the tongue, the moment of indulgence after dinner isn't just selling ingredients—it's selling a ritual
• A snack brand that emphasizes the crunch, the satisfaction, the instant pleasure of the first bite makes consumption feel inevitable before it even happens

Nespresso mastered this principle by creating an entire ritual around coffee preparation. From their distinctive capsule designs to their specialized machines to their boutique-style brand experience, they engineered anticipation at every touchpoint. When someone says, "I'm going to make a Nespresso," they're already experiencing pleasure before the first sip.

And if people are primed to crave your product before they even see it? The decision has already been made.

2. RITUAL: Elevating Consumption as Ceremony

Most chocolate brands focus on flavor, ingredients or heritage. But I once came across a truffle brand that did something completely different.

Right there on the packaging, it said: NO CHEWING ALLOWED.

Instead, the brand instructed consumers to let the chocolate melt slowly in their mouth, savoring the treat for as long as possible.

That's a brilliant move. This brand created a complete ritual—one that made eating their chocolate a distinct, memorable experience. By slowing down the consumption process, they even make the indulgence feel richer, longer-lasting and more luxurious.

That's the kind of thinking that makes a brand irresistible. It's not just about selling something—it's about designing a behavior that changes people’s memory structures around your product.

Thankfully, creating rituals doesn't require a massive marketing budget or decades of heritage. It requires understanding the power of distinctive, repeatable moments—the behavioral science of habit formation.

3. HABIT: Becoming the Default Choice

It's easy to assume brand loyalty is a conscious choice. But in reality, loyalty is just another word for habit.

People don't return to the same brands over and over again because they've carefully considered all their options. They do it because it's what they always do.

The brands that win make sure they are embedded into routines—moments in life where they become the default option, a product that gets chosen automatically for the job it does:

• The beer that signals the transition from work to play
• The snack that makes “Netflix and chill” a couple’s favorite date night idea
• The cup of coffee that starts your morning off right, every day

Once a product becomes part of a consumer's routine, they stop thinking about it. And that's the goal.

Brand affinity might make consumers feel good about choosing you. Brand irresistibility means they don't even consider alternatives.

4. SOCIAL CURRENCY: Creating Value Through Scarcity and Validation

Behavioral science confirms two simple truths about human desire:

1. We want what's hard to get (thanks to the Scarcity Effect)
2. We want what others want (thanks to Social Proof)

Scarcity works because people assume that if something is limited, it must be valuable. Social Proof works because people assume that if everyone else is choosing something, it must be worth choosing for themselves.

The Scarcity Effect and Social Proof explain why:

• Limited-edition flavors sell out faster than year-round staples
• Bars and restaurants that run out of a product see an increase in demand the next time it's available
• Products that dominate social feeds create a gravitational pull that no amount of traditional advertising can match

Put them together, and you have a formula for irresistibility.

BrewDog has built their entire business model around these principles. Their limited releases create instant demand, while their provocative branding generates social currency. They may be a fraction of the size of beer industry giants, but they've created outsized impact—and built a $2B business—by understanding what makes products irresistible rather than just appealing.

People don't just want great brands. They want brands that feel like something they need to be part of.

5. PEAK POWER: Sealing the Next Purchase with the Final Moment

If you want to know whether someone will buy your brand again, look at the last moment of their experience.

According to the Peak-End Rule, consumers don't remember entire brand experiences. They remember two things:

1. The most emotionally intense moment
2. The final impression

This is why indulgence brands must design signature moments—Peak-End experiences that leave a lasting imprint, like:

• That first sip of a cocktail that immediately signals relaxation
• That last piece of chocolate that melts perfectly and lingers just right
• That crisp, final crunch of a snack that feels like the perfect ending

Ghirardelli understood this with their individually wrapped chocolate squares. The distinctive shape, the light snap as you break the square with your teeth, the perfect melt—creates an experience with high notes and a great finish designed to drive the next purchase.

People don't just come back for the product. They come back for the specific emotional memory you created.

Stop Asking for Love, Start Engineering Action

For marketers, the challenge isn't limited to getting on a consumer’s radar or building easy emotional ties. It's about making sure that when the consumer is in front of the shelf or the bar menu or roaming the snack aisle, they reach for your product instinctively.

This isn't about campaigns. It's not about promotions or price cuts.

It's about engineering your brand to align with how people actually behave—a strategy that scales and only becomes more effective no matter your entry point.

While brand affinity plateaus when awareness reaches saturation, irresistibility compounds. Every act of intuitive choice strengthens behavioral pathways in consumers' brains, making the next choice even more automatic.

Unlike brand affinity—which can take years to cultivate—irresistibility delivers both immediate impact and long-term value, starting within mere months. By designing for choice rather than just positive sentiment, you're creating brand equity through behavior, not just awareness.

This is efficiency on steroids. Your marketing dollars drive sales today while hardwiring purchasing patterns for tomorrow, dramatically accelerating how quickly your brand can scale.

The opportunity is too great to ignore. Don’t just create emotional connections that make people feel good about your brand. Engineer the emotional triggers that make them feel compelled to choose it.

Remember:

• If you're not building anticipation before the moment of choice, you're making consumers work too hard
• If your brand isn't embedded in habits, you're asking people to consciously choose you—and that's a big ask
• If you're not making your product feel scarce or socially validated, you're forcing people to reason when they'd rather follow
• If you're not designing a memorable final impression, you're missing your best shot at the next purchase

Yes, build brand love. Yes, create affinity. Just don't stop at feelings.

Because ultimately, when it comes to consumer actions? People need ease, not more to think about.

Irresistibility beats affinity every time.

To see behavioral science principles in action building irresistible brands, explore Method1’s work.

About the Author

Paul Nelson, Managing Director at Method1, brings three decades of marketing and brand-building experience to building irresistible brands. A true champion of behavioral science and bringing moments of joy to people’s lives, he has played a role in driving success for notable CPG brands like Elijah Craig and Evan Williams bourbons, Ocean Spray, Hershey’s, Lunazul Tequila, Cape Tide Hard Tea, Jack Daniel’s and Sam Adams.