What if your blind spot is the room you're in?
Red Slash Studio brings perspective from outside your building – and outside your usual thinking.
Who we work with
We partner with media organisations, cultural institutions, and brands who recognise that certainty has become a liability – that their internal consensus might be creating external blind spots.
Our clients include:
• Broadcasters and publishers trying to understand why audiences are losing trust
• Cultural institutions whose responses to cultural moments seem to strengthen rather than stem audience exodus
• Brands navigating polarised landscapes without the internal perspective to see all readings
What we do
We help you recognise when your well-intentioned responses are accelerating the problems you’re trying to solve.
Through cultural monitoring and strategic provocation, we reveal the blind spots that emerge when organisations can only see one reading of complex cultural moments – helping you respond with nuance rather than rushing to certainty.
Who we are
Red Slash Studios operates at the intersection of traditional media and emerging ecosystems.
With 20+ years’ experience inside major broadcasting organisations (Channel 4, BBC) and deep observation of alternative media landscapes, we bring rare perspective: understanding why something resonates in one context while alienating another, without dismissing either.
We’re contrarians by instinct but collaborators by practice – we don’t tell you you’re wrong, we help you see what you’re missing.
Why now
Everything is pushing us toward binary thinking – algorithms, social media, political discourse. The world is increasingly designed to make everything black and white: right or wrong, with us or against us.
But reality exists in the space between. Most people don’t fit neat categories. They feel lost, unheard, struggling with legitimate concerns that get dismissed as “irrational” because they don’t align with institutional consensus.
The gap between how organisations see the world and how people actually experience it has never been wider – and the frameworks that served brands and media organisations for decades are making it worse. Audiences aren’t just migrating to new platforms – they’re changing who they trust, often toward voices who explicitly position themselves against legacy organisations.
Traditional responses (reinforcing values, defending institutional authority, performing inclusion) make sense internally but accelerate the exodus externally. The cost of these blind spots has never been higher.
What we believe
Emotional responses aren’t irrational – they’re evidence. Understanding why people feel something matters more than proving they shouldn’t.
There’s usually more than one true thing happening at once. Your reading isn’t wrong – but it might not be the only one that matters.
Good intentions don’t guarantee good reception. What signals “we care” in your building might signal “you don’t see us” outside it.
Asking uncomfortable questions beats providing comfortable answers. You can’t change how people see things by telling them what to think – you have to create space for them to think differently.
Where audiences go matters less than why they’re leaving. Understanding the “why” tells you whether your response will help or hurt.
Being contrarian isn’t about being right. It’s about revealing what becomes invisible when everyone in the room agrees.
Why Red Slash Studio
Because we’ve sat in both rooms.
We get the logic of institutional caution. We also get why alternative voices are resonating. We can translate between these worlds without loyalty to either tribe.
What we bring:
• Pattern spotting – that “what if” instinct that sees connections others miss
• Navigating complexity – we can see multiple truths at once without everything collapsing into “well, it’s all relative”
• Productive provocation – we ask uncomfortable questions in ways that open conversations rather than shut them down
• Track record – 20+ years delivering work that resonated with audiences and won 30+ industry awards
Most importantly: we’re genuinely curious about alternative viewpoints and ideas. That makes us safe to work with when you’re exploring uncomfortable territory.
What we offer
Sanity Checks (half-day) Before you launch that campaign or make that statement, we look at it through multiple lenses. What might you be missing? What could land badly that makes sense internally? Think of it as insurance against expensive mistakes.
Facilitated Conversations (1-2 days) We take your team through exercises in seeing things from angles you normally don’t. Particularly useful before major cultural moments or when you’re sensing something’s off but can’t quite name it.
Ongoing Provocation (monthly retainer) Regular check-ins where we share what we’re seeing in audience behaviour, alternative media trends, early warning signals that your response might be making things worse. Like having someone outside the building who’s actually paying attention.
Custom Projects Could be anything from designing research that captures what you’re currently missing, to creating content that bridges traditional and alternative worlds, to building internal processes for “how do we avoid our own blind spots?”
When we thrive
We work best with people who:
• Can sit with discomfort rather than rushing to solutions
• Actually want to understand rather than just be proven right
• Recognise that “winning the argument” matters less than “not losing the audience”
• Are willing to consider they might be seeing half the picture
We’re probably not for you if you just want someone to validate what you already think or make the difficult questions go away.
What if you had someone outside the room?
A critical friend, someone who helps you spot what you can’t see from inside.