Hooked, a mobile app that provides coupons for local restaurants, announced Tuesday it will include UW-Madison restaurants in its limited-time deals.
The app offers a variety of discounts in restaurants around the user’s current location. The offers only last for three to five hours, and the user has to be in the restaurant to “get hooked” and use the coupon.
Kristian Zak, a Hooked marketing director, said the app helps students spend less money, try new restaurants and decide where to go for lunch.
“The app is constantly evolving, nonstop throughout the day,” Zak said. “If you check in the morning, you’ll see coffee specials, and if you check at lunch, you’ll see lunch, so it knows what you want to see at that time.”
The app can now be used at university locations such as Der Rathskeller, Daily Scoop, Badger Market, Peet’s Coffee, Open Book Cafe, Crossroads Cafe and the Sett, giving students the opportunity to find food discounts around campus.
Zak said the company decided to bring Hooked to university locations to improve convenience because students have class all day and can’t alway get off campus.
UW-Madison is one of only three universities connected with the app.
While not every student is aware of the app, most interviewed said they are interested in using it on campus.
“If you can check and see what’s on sale, why wouldn’t you go there?” Brandee Easter, a UW-Madison graduate student, said.
The convenience of the location feature gives incentive to students to go to the places offering deals because they wouldn’t have to travel far.
UW-Madison junior Katie Biester said she sees great value in the app for university restaurant locations if there is an exclusive deal for the customer.
“If you see that the Union, for example, had a cheaper deal than Chipotle, I would totally come [to the Union] instead,” Biester said.
Zak said he hopes Hooked continues to differentiate itself from “daily deals” apps as it grabs the interest of students on campus.
