McDonald's India Expands EatQual Initiative for Color Blind-Friendly McDelivery

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 colourblind 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, first of its kind initiative in the food industry. EatQual 2.0, builds upon McDonald's India’s (W&S) inclusivity platform EatQual, which was launched three years back, to make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone.

To spread awareness of the new feature, the brand has also unveiled a heartwarming brand film that gives us a perspective on colour blindness and explains how thisfeature on McDelivery will help consumers with colour blindness improve their experience of viewing their favourite burgers on their McDelivery App and website before placing an order.

Speaking on the launch of this campaign, Mr. 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”.

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.” McDonald’s India started the journey of EatQual in 2020 to improve accessibility and inclusivity for people with various disabilities and has been taking definitive steps ever since then. DDB Mudra has partnered with McDonald’s since EatQual’s inception to strengthen this global purpose platform around inclusion. As a part of this new initiative, EatQual 2.0, the newly updated feature can be accessed by users by simply updating the McDelivery App and website. 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. The brand looks forward to working towards many more such initiatives to make McDonald’s an accessible brand.

The brand launched this initiative on World Sight Day, raising awareness about the campaign through a panel discussion featuring renowned ophthalmologist Dr. Hemalini Samant, Mr. Aniruddh Kothari, a photographer who is also colourblind, and Mr. Arvind R.P., Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald's India (W&S).