Meredith SillsOle Miss athletics has partnered with Coca-Cola this year to bring a new look to their Rebel Rewards app.
“We’re doing a couple of different things with the app, but for the most part there’s going to be more content in the app that fans can use to direct them to more Ole Miss sports, news, dates, pictures, and there’s more of a fan-friendly user interface to the app,” Associate Director for Marketing and Fan Experience Paris Buchanan said.
Rebel Rewards is an app that fans can use at Ole Miss sporting events to gather rewards points throughout the year that go toward different prize levels. The app is enabled by Bluetooth, so when fans are at events, they can turn on Bluetooth and receive different prizes.
“It’s free, and it encourages fans to come to home events, use the app and get rewarded for it,” Buchanan said.
The app can be used at all Ole Miss ticketed sporting events. Each event is given a point value that attendants can earn, such as Saturday’s football game, which is worth 10 points.
Jason List, associate athletic director for marketing and fan experience, said every year the prizes offered are updated while also keeping fan favorites, but this year, they are adding bonus prize opportunities. Prizes include items like concession coupons, monogrammed wallets and purses.
“With the bonus prize opportunity, it makes every game fans attend a potential they could win something,” List said. “Anytime you add a partner like Coca-Cola, it’s fantastic. We have been working closely with them to add to the program, and I think fans will like some of the stuff planned.”
The app has close to 20,000 downloads, but the goal is to get those people to use the app when they are at events.
“People know about it to an extent, but they are still not really sure what it is,” Buchanan said. “We’re still kind of developing a couple of different strategies that will go out explaining how to use it and what it is.”
Junior exercise science major Maggie Jones said she found out about the app during her freshman year in her EDHE class and has used it at football games.
“I think it’s a great idea because it’s a really easy idea to get fans involved to win prizes for going to events,” Jones said. “A lot of people are all about football, so this app is a good way to get people to go to other sports, also.”
List said a lot of people have started going to other sports they never attended prior to downloading Rebel Rewards in order to get more points.
“Once they are at those sports, we hope they enjoy themselves and come back,” List said. “If Rebel Rewards is the platform that gets them through the door the first time, then that is a big success for us.”
