Let’s take the red pill and explore Wonderland together
Opinion
In recent years, we have become addicted to the blue pill of certainty. But there is a cure: human ingenuity. We need not fear progress and change and the unpredictable.
“You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
— Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999
In 2024, we’ve overdosed on blue pills. We’re addicted to them. They’re safe and conventional, protecting us from all that is Wonderland.
But we need to rebalance and shift focus. It’s surely time for the industry to take the red pill?
Twenty-five years ago, The Matrix had its theatrical release. Packed to the digitised rafters with AI, technological determinism, Jean Baudrillard, free will, postmodernism, other-philosophical-clever-stuff-that-I-don’t-understand, humans-as-batteries living in pink jelly pods, bullet time, kung fu, humans vs machines and a spoon*.
And whether you loved its expansiveness or loathed the pretension, it undeniably set the tone for the end of the century (world).
In the same year, Guinness launched its iconic “Surfer” ad: grandiose, abstract, widescreen, confident — a concept borne of red-pill ambition.
Focus on predictability
In the years that have followed, we’ve become somewhat numb on blue pills: spreadsheets and prediction models, efficiencies and proof.
And we need that. Of course we do. But we’ve laser-focused too readily on predictability.
We need to let go, take a deep breath and change the story.
On the one hand, we talk at length about creativity, divergence of thought, zigging when the world zags, blah blah blah. On the other hand, we’re doping on blue pills, ending up horribly addicted to certainty and the codification of cut-through. Simultaneously terrified and awestruck by technology and the paradox of progress.
Don’t fear change
But we have the cure: human ingenuity.
Our brains are perfect in all of their imperfection. We need not fear progress and change and the unpredictable; but we must write it back into the script, choosing instead to loosen our grip on the lifebuoy of certainty by throwing back a few red pills. They are the key, the access code.
And I’m not alone. Orlando Wood at System1 published two excellent tomes about exactly this, in partnership with the IPA (Lemon and Look Out respectively). Both laden with observations and remedies, infused with the power of emotion in advertising and — importantly to this commentary — the significance of brain hemispheres. Red pill = right brain; blue pill = left brain.
Flattened culture
Meanwhile, we’re in the midst of a technological revolution that places emphasis algorithms and programmed choice that have flattened culture. Again, don’t just take my word for it — read Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld: How algorithms flattened culture.
And if “flattened” doesn’t work for you, what about monochromic? Just as the Matrix world was largely colourless (or at least subdued in hue), so too are our choices. In fact, the biggest technological purchase any of us will make — buying a car — is a stark monochrome marker; colour has drained from our vehicle choices since the 1990s.
Probably unsurprisingly, the world of scientific discovery is also not immune. Evidenced by the quest for moonshots falling off a cliff. The same blue-pill safety and comfort of unexpansive and safe “exploratory” thinking (and which in turn provides funding for “orthodox” and risk-free research) means that more papers are written than breakthroughs built.
The unexplored and the unknown
The uncomfortable truth is that, for marketers, the blue pill is costly.
New work from Peter Field and Adam Morgan finally proves that dull, rational and category-generic communications must work harder than interesting, emotive work to be effective. Which is obvious, right? But we keep choosing it nonetheless.
But all is not lost.
Humans — our fallibility, our mistakes, our peccadillos. These cannot be replicated by technology or algorithms.
Just like in The Matrix, the protagonists did not deny technology; they used it to improve and advance and challenge.
They took the red pill. They chose the unpredicted. The unwritten. The unexplored. The unknown.
I say we choose the rabbit hole too. Let’s give ourselves permission to dream and play and invent.
The time for Wonderland is now. Take the red pill. It’s easier than you think.
Four ways to take the red pill
Find rabbit holes: Instead of defaulting to X or Meta, spend 10 minutes every day knocking about on Substack or Reddit. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Daydream: The art of doing nothing is the most underused concept we have in our lives. Do nothing and do it hard.
Feed your head: Everything you see, hear, touch, smell and experience is a valuable dot to connect. Switch off, but stay on.
Our friends, electric: Keep unusual company. Expand your horizons. Talk to people outside this industry. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
* But remember: there is no spoon.
Claire Kimber is managing partner, strategy and innovation, at Goodstuff Communications