The card game Uno is renaming Alaska's capital
The city of Juneau, Alaska, is pulling a wild card move.
The state's capital announced Friday that it is officially changing its name to UNO as part of a sponsorship deal with the Mattel card game -- suspiciously timed to take effect on the first day of April.
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The partnership will kick off a new Mattel campaign aimed at promoting a new version of the game stocked with more "wild" cards.
"We sort of thought, 'How do we go wild for UNO and what's something we can do that's wild?'" said Ray Adler, the company's director of global games. "And we looked to the great outdoors."
The brand is also handing out free decks of cards at the "UNO" City Hall all day and making a commemorative donation to a local nonprofit that will go toward local youth programs.
While it might seem a strange move on Juneau's part, buying the naming rights to a city is not unheard of. In 2011, Supersize Me director Morgan Spurlock temporarily renamed the town of Altoona, Pennsylvania, to POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Pennsylvania -- likely to the annoyance of its residents and postal workers.
The city's leaders are hoping the deal will give it some free publicity on the national stage and provide some fun for residents in the wake of the recent death of the city's mayor, Greg Fisk.
"It seemed like a win all the way around," said Juneau city manager Kimberly Kiefer. "Frankly for Juneau, we've been through some hard times so I think having something we can all laugh together about is a good thing."
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Patrick Kulp is a Business Reporter at Mashable. Patrick covers digital advertising, online retail and the future of work. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a degree in political science and economics, he previously worked at the Pacific Coast Business Times.
