McDonald's EatQual campaign makes McDelivery colour blind-friendly

When it comes to ordering food, we eat with our eyes first. However, the experience

might be different for colour-blind people. Colour blindness is more widespread than many realize, with roughly 70 million people in India experiencing it.

With an intent to make food ordering more enjoyable and easier for colour blind consumers, McDonald’s India (West and South) - owned and operated by Westlife Foodworld Ltd, has launched a new feature on its McDelivery App and website to make it colour blind-friendly. EatQual 2.0, builds upon the brand's inclusivity platform EatQual, which was launched three years back. 

It has released an ad campaign on World Sight Day that puts us in the shoes of Aniruddh Kothari, a Red-green colourblind photographer. As Aniruddh goes about his day in the city clicking photos of people, objects, murals, and places, the pictures clicked are colourful and vibrant but he sees them a little differently- devoid of colour.

As he opens his phone, he can finally see the colour of a McDonald’s burger with the new colour blind-friendly version. The campaign aims to explain how this feature on McDelivery will help consumers with colour blindness improve their experience of viewing burgers on the app and website before placing an order. 

Individuals who are colour blind can select from three colour enhancement options ‘Green-Red’; ‘Red-Green’ and ‘Blue-Yellow’. The App and website use a special algorithm to display the menu in colours that are appropriate for the user. This allows colour blind people to see the real colours of the food and drinks and make more informed decisions about what they want to order.

Speaking on the launch of this campaign, Arvind R.P., Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald’s India (W&S) said, “We at McDonald's are on a mission to make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone, and we literally mean ‘everyone’. Born from this mission, our EatQual campaign underscores our commitment to breaking down barriers, ensuring that every customer is able to access the brand easily, feels welcome and has a great experience every time they choose to eat with us. Recognizing that we ‘eat with our eyes first’ and acknowledging that colour blindness is a widespread reality, we took the initiative to make our McDelivery App and website more accessible. We hope those with colour blindness will enjoy using this new feature to see the crave-able visuals of their favourite iconic products

before ordering, just like all other consumers”.

To ensure a wider reach of the campaign, McDonald’s has partnered with stand-up comedian and influencer Kenny Sebastian for this initiative. Being an individual who has colour blindness, Kenny Sebastian said, “I feel really happy to partner with an iconic brand like McDonald's on this initiative that makes its services more inclusive and easily accessible to colour-blind people like me. I am sure the McDelivery experience will now become easier to navigate through. I look forward to using the feature to view delicious food images on the app before making my pick”.

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DDB Mudra Group has partnered with the brand since EatQual’s inception to strengthen this global purpose platform around inclusion.

Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group shared, “We've always believed that EatQual is more than just a campaign; it's a journey that McDonald's is on. With every intervention, we hope to enhance the eating experience, making it a little more equal for everyone. That's why we work closely with the community to help us understand what they might be missing and how we can bridge that gap.”

The brand has promoted its EatQual pack in the first and second campaigns - a special pack that caters to customers with limited hand mobility. The campaigns were launched on 21 December 2021 and 24 December 2022 respectively. They depict how packaging can make enjoying a burger more accessible.