Lessons of 21st-Century BrandsModern Brands success today is more about finding pain points or passions that resonate with customersand building relationships with them in the digital language they understand. The new model is about customer intimacy as an essentialindeed, the essentialcomponent of the brand. Connecting with a lifestyle and mindset now drives marketing and new product designs, often for age-old standards like razor blades, eyeglasses, mattresses, bicycles, baby products, and even art. Humans have been making these things for hundredsand even thousandsof years. Now they come direct to the door. The lessonthe wake-up call, in factfor brands struggling with an analog mindset in a digital world is to get super smart about data. There is no reason such a business cant wise up and be digital and direct, at least to some degree. Our research and reporting for “Lessons of 21st-Century Brands” unwraps the actions and attitudes of successful direct marketers as a how-to guide for any business looking to improve its relationships with customers and prospects or to wholly transform their efforts into a well-oiled digital machine. The Forbes Insights/Quantcast research driving this e-book was built on the hypothesis that most brands today are not extracting insights from data and utilising AI optimally to understand their audiences, reach and influence customers, and measure the impact of their marketing investments. Indeed, the results show that organisations across the boarddirect and traditionalcan unlock growth by being modern, intelligent marketers.The upstarts are winning. Brands that came into the world as digital renegades in the 21st century are disrupting age-old businesses and the behemoths that have held dominant sway over themand theyre doing it by building close relationships and shared communities with modern, fast-moving audiences. IntroductionModern Brands its the way to get more precise in messagingand, as a result, achieve greater customer intimacy.The Forbes Insights/Quantcast survey shows how far ahead digitally direct leaders are in this space. As seen in Figure 5, leaders use their first-party data to effectively target their audiences; third-party data plays an insignificant role in targeting. Laggards, on the other hand, have got things backwardtheyre not using first-party data effectively and rely mainly on third-party data.Interestingly, also seen in Figure 5, brands across business types are using first-party data, which underscores the fact that any business can become digitally savvy and effective. Leaders are also much better at measuring ad and campaign impacts across key metrics.The Special Brew: Audience Insight & MeasurementTargeting & Measurement Figure 5.95% 54%First-Party DataSecond-Party Data Third-Party DataFirst-Party DataSecond-Party Data Third-Party DataBy business type:91% 50%Customer Acquisition/RetentionPurchases/Purchasing Intent65% 67%57% 65%LaggardsLeaders74% 40%Traditional/e-comDirectLaggardsLeaders83% 80% 80%Traditional/no e-com70% 81% 80%65% 64% 67%How effectively does your organisation target a relevant audience using the below: (“effectively“ or “highly effectively“)0.00.20.40.60.81.00.00.20.40.60.81.0nullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullnullOur organization measures ad and campaign impacts on the following areas effectively.