I thought to be clever and just put an transparent UIButton over an UIImageView with the exact frame size, so that I can wire it up easily with any event I like, for example
In addition to UIButtonTypeCustom, I set the button text colors to the following:
[button setTitleColor:[UIColor clearColor] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[button setTitleShadowColor:[UIColor clearColor] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
[button setTitleColor:[UIColor clearColor] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];
[button setTitleShadowColor:[UIColor clearColor] forState:UIControlStateHighlighted];