Today’s world is characterised by a cluttered and noisy market space and a lack of receptivity by consumers. This constitutes a difficulty for marketers to effectively reach their target audience. Thus, new techniques and strategies are developed such as street art advertising to overcome consumer’s disengagement. The combination of art elements and advertising cues could inhabit the possibility not only to break through the advertising clutter but also to reach the consumer in a creative and innovative way. Borrowing the energy from street art could synergise new forms of engagement and further could compensate the negative association by consumers towards hard-selling.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore consumers reactions to and effects of guerrilla marketing campaigns that feature street art elements. In order to accomplish the research purpose, three research questions have been developed. Thereby, the concept of consumer engagement functioned as a guidance.

This study adopted the research philosophy of interpretivism and constructionism with a semi-inductive approach. Furthermore, the study employed a qualitative research design with the nature of exploratory. A total of five semi-structured group interviews were conducted to explore the effects of street art elements in combination with advertising.

To adequately reach the selected target population a combination of a convenience, purposive and self-selection sampling technique was considered to create homogeneous group interview compositions. Lastly, a conceptual content analysis was employed to properly analyse the data set.

The results show that street art advertising is a valuable tool for marketers to create consumer engagement. Furthermore, especially the (street) art elements facilitate a positive perception and mitigate the negative aspects related to advertising such as the advertising clutter. As can be seen in the developed Street Art-Advertising Matrix the interplay of different factors creates profound consumer engagement, whereby the theme opacity plays a crucial role in communicating street art advertising. Additionally, finding the perfect balance of street art elements and advertising cues is the key to a successful execution and thus, the creation of consumer engagement.