Traditional Wild Posting

The History of Wild Posting

Early documentation of wild postings can be seen in historical texts dating back to middle Europe during the 15th century. Announcements or proclamations were affixed in town squares throughout Europe to maximize exposure during market days. Starting as a method to communicate local news, as time went on, these postings were used to promote local goods and services, activism, cultural information, and directional advertising for public houses and other important venues in the area. The practice became so popular that, as far back as the 1890s, instructions were widely published on how to remove posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in order to prevent damage.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, wild posting took over major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, and Milan. In the late 1960s, Alchemy’s predecessor, National Promotions & Advertising emerged out of Los Angeles and began to consolidate the street media industry nationwide. While Star Wars proved to be a huge break in the late 1970s, it was the Apple iPod’s introduction in the early 2000s that helped to broaden out, legitimize and popularize Alchemy’s media nationwide, with industries as varied as automotive, fashion, food and beverage, travel, sports, finance and banking, and pharmaceuticals using wild postings to help drive home their brand messaging.