Digital signage as an opportunity to enhance the mall environment: a moderated mediation model

PurposeThere is ample evidence supporting the generalizability of the stimuli-organism-response framework in the retail field, with limited extensions to digital signage inside malls. This article postulates that favourable perceptions of the mall environment result in stronger approach behaviours than positive experienced emotions. This varying indirect effect is predicated to be moderated by shoppers' enjoyment of hedonic digital signage content.Design/methodology/approachThis study was conducted at two upmarket super-regional malls in South Africa with a wide variety of contemporary digital signage displaying hedonic content. Purposive quota sampling was used to intercept and survey 400 regular shoppers viewing dynamic hedonic digital signage content. Data was collected via an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire. Hayes macro conditional process analysis was used to determine the moderating role of hedonic content enjoyment and to estimate regression coefficients of the proposed model.FindingsIt was found that favourable perceptions of the mall environment is strongly associated with approach behaviours relative to the indirect effect of positive experienced emotions. When shoppers' enjoyment of hedonic content is factored in the model, low enjoyment of hedonic content shows an insignificant effect of digital signage on approach behaviours. However, for high enjoyment of hedonic content, this relationship is positive and significant.Research limitations/implicationsDigital signage was only studied as a design cue and the promising role as social cue or ambient factor were thus not take into account. It also applied a cross-sectional survey rather than an experiment and has modelled the effects of digital signage as a part of retail atmospherics rather than its presence or absence in malls. The results were generated based on a survey with shoppers from two upmarket super-regional malls in South Africa while viewing digital signage displaying hedonic content. Findings might differ for utilitarian content and other settings.Practical implicationsPractical recommendations on how shopping mall management could utilise digital signage to possibly increase approach behaviours are provided.Originality/valueThere is very limited research on the effects of digital signage on shoppers in the mall environment. This study is one of the first to consider enjoyment of digital signage content inside malls as moderating variable. Additionally, this study c