In the UK, it is believed that Reverse Graffiti was first created in 2004 in it's current format by a Graffiti Artist called Paul Curtis aka Moose. Curtis started off with a template made out of plywood, he cut out some letters and words and then applied the template to the surface of a pavement. He then took a a clean rag (or a sock allegedly) and a bucket of water and rubbed clean the exposed areas of the cutouts on the template. When the template was lifted the cleaned areas contrasted boldly with the dirty surface of the pavement and voila! Reverse Graffiti was born. Curtis coined the term Reverse Graffiti and he used it in subsequent interviews. I understand from reading several articles that Curtis was arrested in Leeds for carrying out Reverse Graffiti by Leeds City Police. After explaining the process he was employing and after some legal debate Curtis was freed without charge. He then went on to carry out several commercial and charity campaigns.
In 2006, Street Advertising Services was established to provide Reverse Graffiti (or Street Advertising as it started to become known) services to Brand Owners and Marketing and PR agencies in the UK and mainland Europe. Street Advertising Services first campaign was for Gumtree.com a classified Ad website owned by Ebay. Gumtree wanted to start selling more houses on their site directly between vendor and purchaser thus removing the need for an estate agent.
working with Gumtree's PR agency Alexis PR, the team at Street Advertising Services created six different stencil adverts and then placed over 150 adverts outside the windows of Estate Agents in cities all over the UK from Glasgow to Bristol. The results of the campaign included a 1200% increase in listings on Gumtree's site and articles in National newspapers as well as a story being featured on Good Morning TV.
With a strong testimonial in their pocket, Street Advertising Services then started to grow and began it's journey to become the number one supplier of Reverse Graffiti or Clean Advertising as its now known) in the world.
After 2007, other players started to come into the market and the use of Reverse Graffiti in Outdoor Advertising became more common. As a result more and more Clean Adverts were appearing on the streets and pavements. With more adverts appearing the legal debate surrounding Reverse Graffiti has become louder. Police Forces across the UK have consented to it being a civic matter not a legal one and several Police Forces including, Northumberland, Sunderland, Cheshire and the Metropolitan Police have all carried out their own Reverse Graffiti campaigns with Street Advertising Services.
Local authorities reactions to Reverse Graffiti have also differed with some councils embracing it and using it to deliver public service messages, others have tried to control it. Even though Reverse Graffiti has provoked a reaction amongst come of these councils. No company or individual has been prosecuted for implementing Clean Advertising on public property.
Further down the line some councils are now in talks about licensing it's use and generating some much needed revenue for their frontline services.
