Digital burnout, ad blindness and sick of brands talking purpose: The 5 million Australians marketers risk alienating – and how to make them share your Out-of-Home campaigns

Gen Z makes up 20 per cent of Australia’s population. There are more than five million of them – and they want very different things from brands. Purpose won’t cut it. They want action, locally and globally – and they are sick of nobody listening to them, per Chris Sanderson and Martin Raymond, founders of The Future Laboratory. They are also – aged between 11 and 26 – already wary of digital burnout. They’ve been bombarded with digital content their whole lives. Which means many are blind to the ads they’ve not already blocked. But not Out-of-Home: Out-of-Home is “so important for them [and to reach them] because Gen Z don’t see it as an intrusion,” per Sanderson. “They see it as a logical, seamless connection with their world of brand.” They are also making their purchase decisions in very different ways to previous generations – the pyramid and related funnel are now “circular”, reckons Raymond, with profound impacts for brands. Plus they say its time to stop “sneering” at the notion of crowd-sourcing aspects of ad campaigns – or at least getting far broader inputs, particularly when marketing on billboards, because Gen Z is all about community, collaboration, and commitment: “It guarantees the sharing of the campaign,” says Raymond. Off the back of a deep dive commissioned by JCDecaux, the two unpack what brands need to know about marketing to Gen Z.

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