Enhancing customer loyalty to shopping centres through special event entertainment: the mediating role of hedonic value?

Abstract

Special event entertainment refers to free entertainment events convened by shopping centres, and popular examples include school holiday events, fashion shows, celebrity appearances and market days. Despite the common use of special event entertainment, very few studies have provided an insight on the effect of special event entertainment on customer loyalty to shopping centres. In particular, very few studies have examined the perceived hedonic value and quality of special event entertainment, and how these two constructs interact to influence customers’ approach behaviours in shopping centres. As an attempt to gain this insight, this study surveyed 280 shopping centre patrons in Australia that had experienced special event entertainment. Every 5th shopper in the crowd was approached and handed a self-completed questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data. The results showed that perceived hedonic value consisted of two dimensions: entertainment value and exploration value. These two value dimensions are parallel to the passive and active experiential value proposed by Mathwick, Malhotra and Rigdon (2001). Entertainment and exploration value were found to have significant, positive effects on shopping behaviour and behavioural intention of shoppers. However, these positive effects were not identical. Exploration value demonstrated a much stronger, positive effect than entertainment value. Perceived quality was found to have a positive effect on perceived hedonic value. Two dimensions constituted the perceived quality of special event entertainment: setting quality and performer quality. In particular, setting quality demonstrated a positive effect on both entertainment and exploration value. Conversely, performer quality had a positive effect on exploration value only, and not on entertainment value. Nevertheless, performer quality was found to have a, direct positive effect on both shopping behaviour and behavioural intention. Hence, the results of this study suggest that special event entertainment can enhance shopper loyalty, particularly through perceived hedonic value and quality. However, perceived hedonic value is likely to mediate the effect of perceived quality on shopper loyalty.