First published in Marketing magazine, 20 November 2003

It's cheap, immediate, gives the feeling that the client is into youth culture and, some argue, makes town centres look lively, giving them that feel of edgy urban anarchy.

So instead of booking advertising space months in advance and at great cost, why not just rein in production costs and employ a dodgy flyposting company to get the message on to the streets instead? Sure, it's illegal - but everybody's doing it and it doesn't harm anyone. Or so marketers like to think.

But those who do the posting protect their patches using physical violence, and flypost indiscriminately over legitimate sites such as adshels, private property and public buildings. They also hire students to do most of this dirty work, paying them a pittance and leaving them to face the music when they get caught.

Flyposting breeds lawlessness and attracts litter and graffiti, which in turn can lead to vandalism. Recent research by Encams (the charity behind Keep Britain Tidy) showed that half of residents wanted their local councils to put more resources into tackling flyposting because it made their area feel "run down". They also believe that as posters are defaced and start to degrade, petty environmental crimes are attracted to the vicinity.

The practice is leading to councils putting more and more resources into removal and prosecutions. One council spent £200,000 tackling flyposting last year - money that came out of our pockets and could have been put toward schools, hospitals or other services instead.

In marketing terms, we're losing out on a revenue stream, too. If big companies, especially those in the music business, are using flyposting, they are not putting their budgets through us into mainstream space-buying.

It also does nothing for the credibility of our work. As we strive to help marketing get recognised at the top table with other business professions such as finance and law, surely it damages our collective reputation to be advocates of illegal environmental abuse.

Finally, if you are not convinced that flyposting is immoral, harms our professional reputation and is detrimental to the local environment, you do need to know that it is illegal. Those responsible can be prosecuted through the magistrates' courts and fined up to £1000 for just one poster.

Nor do councils prosecute only those responsible for putting the poster up - they also take action against the 'beneficiaries' of the advertising (the client or the agency). They have powers to ask for the removal of posters within 48 hours and, upon failure, can clean up themselves and claim recovery costs.

The marketing industry needs to act more responsibly and think of creative ways of promoting youth culture and products other than flyposting. We are renowned for being innovative and cutting-edge and should apply our minds to finding alternative, legal, methods of publicity. There are limitless possibilities, especially with text messaging, viral internet campaigns and product endorsement in the equation.

And while we're ensuring we don't advocate flyposting to clients, agency bosses have to get tough and refuse to deal with clients who want our profession to break the law on their behalf.