NEW YORK — The name Ryan Cabrera may not mean much to anyone born before 1985, but Simon Property Group is counting on him to inspire fervor in the hearts of teenagers this fall.
Starting Aug. 5, the towheaded Cabrera — a regular presence in teenybopper magazines like Seventeen, Teen People and BOP — will make a further break from his reputation as Ashlee Simpson’s boy toy and headline the third season of Simon Dtour Live, a concert and entertainment tour designed to draw teens to the mall.
Dtour will stop at 40 Simon properties across the country until Oct. 23 and will also feature Tyler Hilton, of WB’s “One Tree Hill” fame; B5, P. Diddy’s newest boy-band project under Bad Boy, and several other teen acts. Past Dtour artists include Simpson, Lil’ Mo and 3LW.
Following the performances, the artists will meet and greet while participating sponsors host different activities. Past sponsor booths have offered henna tattoos, a Sprite DJ crash course and Tamagotchi Connection crafts.
“Dtour keeps the shopping center hip and appealing to young audiences,” said Stewart Stockdale, chief marketing officer of Simon and president of Simon Brand Ventures, the business-to-consumer arm of the real estate investment trust. “These teen sensations may or may not come to a small market on their own. Dtour proves that the mall is a very important community-based asset that can bring unique experiences like this to local markets free of charge.”
Thanks to the undisclosed millions that Simon, which owns more than 170 malls in the U.S., invests in Dtour, and the sponsorship dollars from such companies as Visa, Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, Playtex and Verizon, teenagers can see the performances for free — but that doesn’t mean they won’t spend money.
Dtour’s retail partners include Pacific Sunwear, Aéropostale and Claire’s Accessories, which participate with tie-ins and promotions at their stores to lure the teens in before and after performances. Though the tour coincides with the critical back-to-school shopping period, Stockdale insists that was just lucky timing.
The promotions are especially valuable in targeting teenagers, who generally make their shopping decisions on-site. The entire Dtour model is based on Simon’s understanding of teenagers and the suburban mall as a primary source of entertainment. According to the company, which partnered with the teen marketing arm of Alloy Media + Marketing to produce Dtour, the average teenager makes close to five trips to a Simon mall per month, spending roughly 1.5 hours and $44 per visit. Teenagers are twice as likely to come to the mall with friends than with an adult, bolstering the notion that, rather than necessity shopping — at, say, a grocery store — going to the mall is a leisure experience.
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Many adults go to malls with an idea of what they are going to buy and how much they are going to spend. The average adult Simon customer makes approximately three visits a month and spends $102 per visit. Though adults aren’t ignored in Simon’s marketing campaigns — the Simon Mall for You program offers women mini-facials, massages and color consultations — the mall owner is devoting a lot of its marketing energy to teens.
The Teen Machine Tour, for example, courts the young digerati with a 20,000-square-foot tent with rooms like the Main Frame, a teen club; Download, an Internet cafe; the Circuit, a room devoted to cutting-edge, online gaming, and Processor, a high-tech name for a food court. The Teen Machine, which is rolling out now, is slated to tour more than a dozen malls.
The company may also produce a second multimall tour of “American Idol” finalists. This spring, it hosted its first “American Idol” concert series, bringing thousands of teenagers to the malls with performances by LaToya London and George Huff from the 2004 season and finalists who were voted off the show in 2005. On the side, it provided “American Idol” trivia contests, and singing and dancing competitions. One of the prizes? A Simon Visa gift card.
“Obviously, we’re very interested in capturing the dollars that teenagers spend in our shopping centers, and these events are very positive for our brand,” said Stockdale. “We look at it as entertainment marketing for our properties.”