UNO Card Game Goes "Nonpartisan" for Thanksgiving

UNO, the classic kids (and family!) card game has gone “non-partisan,” in a special edition timed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Not following yet? It will all make PR and marketing sense in a minute.

In short, the folks at parent company Mattel have eschewed the traditional blue and red cards of the traditional deck in this new “Nonpartisan UNO.” Here are the particulars:

The classic red and blue cards were replaced with more politically neutral colors of orange and purple. The new packaging is purple as well; being an intermediate color formed of red and blue, it should encourage people to find some common ground…

The updated version of the game also introduces a new VETO card that enables someone to “skip the player’s next turn and makes them change the subject.”

Photo: Mattel

This is another one that just nails it in terms of executing against a simple, fun and somewhat formulaic PR playbook. It’s a (relatively) low-cost, high-return idea. Sure, it takes a little “guts” to do it. Some people will bellyache about political correctness and can’t be we agree to disagree or more good-natured “screw you, snowflake/alt-right/socialist” whatever. But what do you really have to lose if you’re the folks at UNO? Whereas the gains…

How about a cover story on CNN.com? And, oh by the way, FOX too? Broadcast coverage all over the country. A whole bunch of Twitter talk. All for a card game invented nearly 50 years ago and battling every day against a digitized world of toys, apps and more? Well. Played.

What’s even better, is that anyone can follow this brilliantly simple game plan.

• Seasonal Moment: UNO made itself relevant during a time where people could be interested in the playing this family game and there is an increased volume of news and attention - the Thanksgiving holiday.

• Cultural Connection: They then found a way to tap into the cultural discussion of the day, a conversation often being driven by politics, a nation divided, debate and partisanship.

• Emotional Hook (data drop): The program also tapped into the real emotional stress around when family comes together en masse and validated it with data compliments of the American Psychological Association (love it!). It almost went without saying that politics, given its widely-held loft atop the do-not-discuss-come-turkey-time list, can frequently be a catalyst for those stressors.

• New Product Innovation: Lastly, they delivered a “new” product or innovation that could influence their target audience to reassess — and purchase.

Good job, Uno. You little Wild Card, you.