The science of brand journalism

Brand journalism tells stories. And that, Fast Company reports on its blog, is a powerful strategy:

Stories affect us on both on an incredibly deep intellectual and emotional level that we are just beginning to understand.

That quest began when scientists discovered that fictional stories affected the same region of the brain that reacts when we ourselves are engaged in real-life drama. Stories create a bonding empathy which causes us to strongly identify with the made-up protagonist, as if we were, in fact, that person. In other words, stories have such impact because our brains actually get a little mixed up as to what’s real and what’s not. ...

Scientists have also determined why stories are so important to our intellectual activity: Our brains use them to process different strands of information and make sense of it all. It’s no secret that our early ancestors created elaborate stories about various mythological gods to explain various natural phenomena they couldn’t understand. Frankly, all of us are always after an explanation for why things are the way they are.