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MAD//Fest 2025: Delayed adulthood, algorithmic segregation and Gen Z hippies

MAD//Fest 2025, UK

UK – MAD//Fest returned to Shoreditch on 1 July 2025, with this year’s theme Be Less Boring challenging brands to rethink how to engage with new audiences.

Gaining and retaining the attention of Gen Z remains a key concern for brands and marketers. In an opening panel, Marketing to Gen Z in the Age of Social Media Toxicity, Kian Bakhtiari, founder of global youth creative agency The People, highlighted how Gen Z feel ‘adulthood starts at 28’, with traditional life milestones increasingly out of reach This, he argued, fuels a sense of powerlessness and disconnection from their future – echoing insights from our Gen Z Now and Next macrotrend.

Caroline Gregory, global brand director of Axe/Lynx at Unilever, spoke about the brand’s responsibility to portray women with agency and move away from outdated gender tropes, addressing rising toxic masculinity and growing gender divergences.

Bakhtiari warned that algorithmic platforms are deepening these divides, creating separate cultural universes for young men and women. ‘Brands have a responsibility in where they invest in media – on platforms that segregate or unite,’ he said.

Elsewhere, on a panel exploring digital trust in a post-truth world, Andrea Evans-Bilham, Internet Commission director at the Trust Alliance Group, predicted that Gen Z will parent differently, adopting a hippie mindset, enforcing stricter digital boundaries and prioritising offline play for their children.

Brands that are mindful of Gen Z’s shifting tech values and committed to safeguarding younger generations will be the ones to which Gen Z will pledge loyalty. Head to our Gen Beta report for more on what the world might look like for the world’s youngest demographic.

Strategic opportunity

As Gen Z increasingly inhabit gender-siloed digital spaces, brands should create campaigns, events and media partnerships that intentionally unite young men and women around shared interests – from music and gaming to sustainability and creativity – helping to counter dangerous echo chambers

Habitat and Pinterest unveil immersive campaign putting emotion into home design

The Home of Attention by Habitat and Pinterest, UK

Global – Habitat has teamed up with Pinterest for an immersive storytelling campaign that repositions homeware as a tool for emotional re-invention and shoppable inspiration.

Launching exclusively on Pinterest, The Home of Attention is Habitat’s first campaign with the platform, and blends short films with interactive formats to show how small design choices – like a single lamp – can reshape the mood, function and personality of a space.

Each cinematic film captures a moment of re-invention in the home, supported by Pinterest-first features such as 360-degree shoppable sets, creator content and the platform’s new collage ad format.

The campaign, led by branded content agency Drum with media by PHD UK, leans into Pinterest’s unique role as a visual discovery engine where people actively seek ideas and plan their spaces.

‘We’ve reframed ‘simple’ changes as powerful, considered moves that earn attention and consideration,’ said Chris Frankland, senior creative at Drum, in a press release. The first film, centred around Habitat’s Billie Lamp, went live on 25 June.

In EQ-homes, we previously analysed how brands are embedding emotional intelligence into everyday appliances, signalling a shift from smart to sensitive home technology.

Strategic opportunity

Consider how to go beyond static e-commerce by investing in 360-degree content, interactive storytelling or live shopping to turn discovery into purchase

Stat: Young adults are redefining romantic relationships on their terms

Feeld, UK

Global – As romantic norms fragment, 20% of people are now unknowingly practising ‘relationship anarchy’, according to the latest State of Dating report by Feeld.

The philosophy, first coined in 2006 by Swedish activist Andie Nordgren, is gaining traction amid what many are calling a crisis in modern dating.

Findings from the report show that Millennials and Gen Z are 1.5 times more likely to know about relationship anarchy than Boomers, and increasingly embrace the non-hierarchical, consent-based relationship model which rejects couple-centric ideals and capitalism’s influence on love. By contrast, only 15% of Boomers surveyed have tried relationship anarchy.

This shift reflects wider disillusionment with traditional dating, with nearly half (47%) of US adults saying it is harder now than a decade ago (source: Pew Research Center).

With polyamory and open relationships increasingly visible, Gen Z and Millennials are leading the change – 73% say they’re open to non-traditional partnerships (source: R29 Intelligence). Conventional models of love, family and partnership are being fundamentally redefined. As explored in our Women Without Kids report, brands must evolve with this shift – designing for lifestyles, not life stages.

Strategic opportunity

As young adults redefine love and partnership on their own terms, brands must design for fluid, value-led lifestyles. Think beyond couples and children – build for networks of care, autonomy and chosen intimacy