As one of the world’s favorite card games, UNO has long been beloved for its universal game play based on matching numbers and colors. It’s a simple and inclusive game for players of all ages.

Except for people who struggle to distinguish between UNO’s four iconic colors.

In fact, approximately 350 million people worldwide are colorblind. That means 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women, are affected by a form of colorblindness. So Mattel decided to make the world’s most universally inclusive card game even more inclusive.

Enter UNO ColorADD. Colorblind accessible UNO.

After a 60-day production turnaround for the physical decks, UNO ColorADD launched on International Colorblind Awareness Day, September 6, 2017.

We engaged media/influencers under embargo with news of the upcoming UNO ColorAdd deck offering physical decks, spokesperson interviews and background on the global organization ColorADD, and their proprietary Color Alphabet.

For launch day stories, the team targeted one national broadcast exclusive, one national print/online exclusive, 50-75 cross-vertical outlets, top-tier influencers and celebrities.

This way, the UNO deck became a medium and vehicle for spreading ColorADD’s proprietary Color Alphabet.

Colorblind-optimized card games were a new untapped market, and the market reacted.

Year-over-year sales saw a 66% increase for UNO during the week of UNO ColorADD launch.

The UNO ColorADD story generated more than 130 articles, 70 broadcast stories from media like ABC, NBC and Fox and 210 million impressions.

Our launch coverage drew the attention of The Smithsonian. That’s right: The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC was so impressed by the inclusive nature of UNO ColorADD, the museum’s curator asked to include the deck in an accessibility-themed exhibit touring museums around the globe.

Global market penetration soon followed. The UNO ColorADD Deck was translated into 13 languages for consumers across the globe.