Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Brand stories work so well because they synch up with the fundamental structure of the brain with the brains perception,
processing and memory storytelling is brain-friendly communication. Brand stories are vivid, animated and appealing.
They are about people interacting with an environment (the jungle, mountains, the wild west, etc.). The interaction is
important because it illustrates how to avoid danger and seek a better, safer life.
Storytelling craft draws on patterns, e.g. characters, action and places, which we learned about as children and which make it
easy for us to understand, process and remember: evil becomes good, poor becomes rich and ugly becomes beautiful.
That we have at our command our own neural network responsible for remembering stories illustrates the importance of
stories to the brain: episodic memory. This neural system has enormous responsibility since we need it to make decisions: we
actually store feelings along with stories and experiences about whether the story turned out good or bad for us so that we
know whether to repeat the experience again or avoid it.
Conclusion: we should anchor our brand in digital media with positive stories and experiences in episodic memory. Brand
experiences are based on the reward promise we formulate (Chapter 1). We need to find suitable and consumer-oriented
experiences which position our brand in a unique way our brand should hang like a Picasso painting in the minds of our
consumers.
Researchers are constantly searching for the particularly important dimensions of successful communication. One of these
superdimensions is clarity: how clear and concise is my image of the brand, what does it do and what makes it unique?
Research shows: the clearer the image, the quicker and more focused are our decisions. A central goal of digital branding
should therefore be to create transparency. Easier said than done. Innovation as an example: what do we mean by
innovation? Why is it important to the brand and the consumer? Does innovation help me avoid danger and achieve a better
life?
Digital brand storytelling can create a clear brand image by utilizing storytellings core elements: what people or characters
represent innovation? Which actions? Which places or stages indicate innovation?
Particularly potent elements of storytelling are the images from stories that appear in our minds eye when we think of a
company. Neuroscientist Ernst Pppel says that we must access pictorial or episodic memory in order to elicit and especially
change behavior. The mental images of the brand are what cause consumers to pay more than they would without a picture
in their minds 29 times more for the same crystal from Swarovski as from a warehouse store (WMF). Investors want to be a
part of and profit from a brand with success stories. Journalists report on brands with interesting stories to tell.