He was called crazy until people went, “Ahh, I get it.”

Vincent van Gogh painted with fire in his veins and doubt in his ears.

In his lifetime, he sold one painting. One. He was dismissed as erratic, unstable, unmarketable. To the world, he was background noise until the day the world recalibrated and heard music.

Now he’s shorthand for genius. His brushstrokes are currency. His name is a myth that every artist, and every brand, secretly wishes they could inherit.

Here’s the catch: nothing about the work changed. Only perception did.

Van Gogh didn’t have a vision problem. His vision was so sharp, so far ahead, that no one else could see it. He painted fields that looked like fire and skies that looked alive. Not because he was delusional, but because he was already standing in a future the rest of the world hadn’t reached yet.

That’s the cruel paradox of vision: when you’re blazing a trail, it rarely looks like genius in the moment. It looks like madness. People laugh, dismiss, roll their eyes. They call it reckless, unstable, even dangerous. Only later, sometimes decades later, do they admit it was brilliant all along.

And that’s where most brands stumble. They confuse safety with strategy. They aim for what makes sense now instead of what will make sense when the world catches up. They stick to campaigns that look acceptable in the moment but forgettable in hindsight.

The brands that change culture don’t wait for permission. They push out work that might be called crazy today, knowing that’s exactly what makes it inevitable tomorrow.

The lesson isn’t to mimic Van Gogh’s torment. It’s to recognize his leverage: the vision was there, whole and complete, even when no one believed in it. That’s what made him timeless.

So here’s the question: is your brand producing what fits in, or is it creating the kind of work that turns heads now, then builds a long-tail that endures once the world catches up?

At The Off Label, we help brands turn “crazy” ideas into the kind of visions that survive doubt, outlast noise, and age into genius.

Because when history writes its labels, no one remembers the safe ideas. They remember the visionary ideas.

Van Gogh was called crazy until the world saw genius.

Let them call us crazy. We’ll make sure the next line is: “Ahh, I get it.”

The Off Label. Please misuse as directed.