Look at the marketing mix of any brand, big or small, and it’s likely that paid digital ads play a large role. But the success of targeted advertising over the past decade has created an unexpected problem, according to leading futurists.

Younger customers – caught in a never-ending hype cycle of new trends – are increasingly exhausted by ‘new’ stuff. Others are growing suspicious of algorithms designed to encourage them to spend, spend, spend. As a result, many are switching off.

For brands, who pour billions of dollars into digital advertising every year, this presents a dilemma. Gen Z and Millennials account for 36% of the total retail spend in Australia. If they’re rejecting the algorithm, how else can brands reach them?

The solution is to radically rethink the consumer-brand relationship, according to Solving The Consumer Equation, a new report prepared by global forecasting agency The Future Laboratory, in........

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