Not just any wall.
Tony Cullingham’s ‘Relevant & Radical’ Wall.
It was simple. Brutal, even.
Our ideas were publicly judged and assigned to one of four quadrants, where they were forced to confront their creative mortality.
Irrelevant & Boring: the graveyard.
Radical & Irrelevant: exciting, but pointless.
Relevant & Boring: safe, sensible, invisible.
Relevant & Radical: the elusive bullseye.
Nobody landed in that fourth quadrant often.
That was the point.
It taught me early that most ideas aren’t good enough, not because they lack imagination, but because they lack alignment.
That framework has stayed with me ever since.
Today, I’m an advertising creative, artist, writer, creative director and co-founder.
I build brands, create long term multi-year (sometimes decades) advertising platforms, lead teams, and develop ideas designed to travel across channels, cultures and conversations.
Whatever the project I still start with the same two questions:
Is it relevant?
Is it radical?
Relevant means it connects to the product, the audience, the moment.
Radical means it refuses to be ignored.
Too much of modern marketing settles for one without the other.
The Wall may be long gone, but the principle still guides everything I do.
- Co Founder WE ARE Pi
- Creative Review, contributing writer.
- Exhibiting artist & author
- Sometime tutor, Willem De Kooning Academy
Awards:
- Ad Age Small Agency of the Year
- Creative Pool Agency of the Year x 2
- Campaign Independent Agency of the Year Finalist
- Dubai Lynx Agency of the Year Silver
- Campaign Awards Grand Prix
- The Drum Content Awards Grand Prix
- Campaign Experience of the Decade
- Campaign Gamechanger Award
- D&AD x6
- Cannes Lions x3