Fly-posting: An exploration of a ‘controversial’ medium
Iain R. Blacka * and Iain Nevillb
a Discipline of Marketing, Economics and Business Building, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; b Borne Magazine, Glasgow, UK


This paper investigates the concept of a controversial medium focussing on fly posting and provides insights into the attitudes held on it, the controversies surrounding it, its media effects, and on how these issues affect sponsoring organisations. Overall, the
findings from the group depth interviews paint an attractive picture for potential users, as target groups of younger informants hold positive overall attitudes towards the medium. Indeed, rather than offending, fly posting’s illegality and covert use were
found to further enhance its ability to communicate effectively with this group. In contrast, older respondents held a range of negative views, suggesting that fly posting is not inherently controversial but it can become so in combination with audience and executional factors. Our main contribution is that we provide evidence on which to caution organisations about putting the goal of engaging with youth segments above their responsibility to other customer groups, employees, and society.


Keywords: fly posting; covert marketing; controversial media