Does area damage and increased area help Storm Brand?

I see people putting conc effect or increased area gems in their Storm Brand setup.

I realize it's tagged AOE, but how would that matter when it's attached to the enemy?

Do area mods only help for mapping and mobs?

I'm trying to build the best single target Storm Brand I can. Do I skip all area modifiers?

Increased AoE greatly increases clear speed.

Conc effect greatly increases single target damage, as it's added to the pool of damage multipliers.

What can't you get.

Yeah I figured area would help clear speed a lot, but I didn't realize conc effect would increase damage on a single target. I figured since the brand is attached, added area damage would do nothing to the boss

As long as they deal damage in an area, gems tagged as "AoE" have their damage affected by any source of increased/decreased area damage.

With storm brand increased area damage gets generally added to the damage pool, and affects both damage dealt to mobs withing storm brand's AoE and single target damage (of branded enemy).