This is your brain on story

I have wondered for several years, and maybe you have as well, what the hell is going on in our tiny brains when we cry when Bambi’s mother gets shot. I mean tears rolling down our face and we know it is only a Disney cartoon. Bawling when E.T. finally goes home. A clumsy Muppet in today’s CG wold. My wife bawling after reading one of her trashy romance novels. Seriously.

We feel real fear as Jason approaches the unwitting teenager. Terror when we hear the haunting shark melody from Jaws, without even seeing a shark. Why? We feel euphoric when the officer becomes a gentleman. The hero gets the girl. We know the whole time that these characters are only words on a page or light on a screen.

Why do we believe in these fictional beings and feel emotions toward them, even when they are as implausible as Darth Vader or Superman?

Neuroscientists are beginning to unravel the mystery. Norman Holland, author of Literature and the Brain explains thusly:

In both the act of creation by the writer and our re-creation of the work as readers and audience members, we are passive and receptive. Totally involved in perception, we shut down our systems for motor action and the planning of motor actions. For the creator, that means reduced norepinephrine.  For us, just sitting in an armchair reading or in a theater watching, we believe in fictional characters and events because reality testing is tied to motor activity. Because we are not planning to move, we stop doubting. We feel real emotions toward these fictional characters because the dorsal “where-how” and the ventral “what” systems in our brains are getting conflicting information.

Which leads us to the relatively new practice of Neuromarketing. We may try to hide our lust for goods, but our brain can’t.

Neuromarketing is using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Brain science has advanced quite a bit in the past decade and we now have a much better idea of just how people make decisions.

One of the key lessons learned from brain science is that when we ask people about their reasons for things, we’re only getting a small part of the brain processes that underlie their decision making. A lot of times the information we get is really a reconstruction or rationalization. I’ve seen this using lots of traditional primary research methodologies. We may want to avoid saying we buy things because they appeal to our sense of pride or vanity or some other deadly sin. One of the most fundamental insights in brain science is that most of the processes that underlie our decisions are unavailable to our conscious mind. They’re done on the basis of intuition or unconscious processing. This leads to research findings that are maddeningly “inconclusive”.

So what does this all mean for storytelling, marketing and branding?

In social psychological terms, anecdotes are more powerful persuaders than advertisements. The lawn mower my neighbor recommends is better than the one I see on TV commercial. As long as the source is likable and credible. What we’re really talking about is simply relationships and trust.

A story, especially a good story, allows the audience to disengage a little from reason. A great book can have us suspend disbelief and accept all kinds of outrageous possibilities. With a good brand story, if it engages us emotionally, if we like the source, if we attribute to the brand some positive characteristics, then there is a halo effect extending over the product/s for sale. The story has provided value and built trust with the brand.

All the positive feelings we now have lower frontal lobe activity, reducing critical thinking, making us more easily accept what we’re watching, hearing and feeling. We’re then more likely to engage in some active behavior; consideration set ranking, discussing, shopping, buying, recommending it to a friend, writing blog posts about it, becoming brand loyal, becoming brand fanatical.

End of story.