Rose Bowl giveaway doubles use of University of Iowa’s mobile app

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa four months ago launched a mobile application allowing users to accumulate loyalty points at dozens of business around town, and about 5,000 people had signed up to be members before this week.

Then, on Monday, the UI Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced it will pick one winner from among its Hawkeye Rewards application users to receive two tickets to the Rose Bowl.

'And we doubled our membership in one day,” said Tom Ondrejicka, founder and CEO of the Canada-based company Muv-u Corp. that's offering the app. 'The numbers continue to be consistent in downloads - two to three a minute. That is untested territory from an app perspective.”

More than 10,000 people now are registered to use Hawkeye Rewards, which works like a mobile loyalty card that allows you to earn back money spent at more than 90 merchants in the community. The accumulated rewards can be spent interchangeably at any of the participating businesses - meaning, for example, $5 earned through an oil change could then be spent on a sandwich at the Bread Garden Market.

'We are trying to drive downloads of the app right now - we need users,” said Dale Arens, director of UI licensing. 'So we thought this was the perfect time and circumstances to drive interest and downloads.”

The winner of the Rose Bowl trip, who will be chosen and notified Dec. 23, will receive round-trip airfare to Pasadena on a chartered flight from Des Moines, two tickets to the Rose Bowl, and hotel accommodations for four nights.

Ondrejicka said the surge in membership around the Rose Bowl promotion 'shows the value of the Hawkeyes and the trip.”

'What the trip has done is allowed us to expand the knowledge of Hawkeye Rewards,” he said. 'We also noticed an increase in transactions - it has doubled in one day.”

The UI athletics department was allotted 22,000 tickets to the Rose Bowl, enough to fulfill less than half its 54,381 requests. Officials on Monday began notifying fans approved for tickets - giving priority to season ticket holders, UI donors, and alumni.

To sign up for the promotion and Hawkeye Rewards, visit the website.