The rise of delivery services and apps has been a significant trend, driven by increased smartphone penetration, cheap and fast data connectivity and a growing youth population. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend as movement restrictions and safety concerns put a dampener on eating out.

But, even with stiff competition breeding innovations in delivery times and user experience, including billions spent on food photography, there was one blind spot. 10% of people who order food online in our markets are colourblind and they have been experiencing a lesser version. (Source: TGI 2023)

While brands champion initiatives for visual impairment, colour blindness remains overlooked. We needed to address this problem as a step towards actualising our mission.

Our Goal

1. Expand McDelivery App user base to include the colour-blind community and achieve widespread feature adoption.

2. Improve brand perception scores of ‘Brand for someone like me’ metric

We Eat with Our Eyes First

Studies show that sight is the first judgement factor when it comes to food.

Food paints us a picture and it is this picture that induces cravings and builds anticipation. This is why visual representation is one of the most important parts of the customer journey when it comes to food.

But for the colourblind, the magic fades.

Imagine juicy red tomatoes, a symbol of deliciousness, turning a dull grey. The excitement vanishes. We believe that choosing food shouldn't be a guessing game and that everyone deserves to savour the mouth-watering excitement and promise of a McDonald’s meal.

McDelivery:India’s First Colour-Blind Friendly Delivery App

Introducing the 'Colour-Blind Friendly' tech feature on McDelivery on World Sight Day – 12th October, 2023. The feature helps users select from three colour enhancement options that allow colour-blind people to see the real colour of their food and drinks.

Our campaign spoke to:

10% of online food ordering colour-blind individuals in India who have learnt to make do while navigating a world leached of colour.

One of our largest and most influential cohorts when speaking of catalysing change – Urban Gen Z and Millennial customers.

Our existing brand loyalists, reinforcing their pride in a brand championing inclusiveness and accessibility.

Today ordering food online is step one of enjoying it

We turned our delivery app – a key aspect of the consumer journey into a tool that promoted equity, clarity, and excitement for everyone at the beginning of their food journey. The average cheque price during delivery was 32% higher than in the instore, making the delivery platform just as pivotal for the business.

By partnering with the colour-blind community during the building stage, we ensured that our solution addressed real needs and fostered ownership.

To create India’s first colour-blind friendly delivery app, we integrated open-source Daltonization libraries into our image processing pipeline. Daltonization is a colour correction technique that adjusts colours to make images less confusing to colour-blind individuals. Our app offered customisation for three types of colour blindness, allowing users to personalise their experience. We collaborated with the colour-blind community, conducting extensive tests and making improvements to enhance functionality and user experience.

We reimagined our communications, using real people with colour-blindness to tell our stories - our film featured a real-life colour-blind photographer and his contrasting perception of the world, and our collaborations feature colour-blind influencers like Kenny Sebastian.

We now upload all our commercials on YouTube with an option to view it as per your colour-blindness. We enhanced our in-store experiences to ensure that all our touchpoints reiterated our commitment to inclusivity.

In 6 months, McDonald's colour-blind friendly feature transformed brand perception and drove significant revenue:

16% of all McDelivery orders were placed using the color-blind friendly feature in 6 months

They Contributed 100 million INR to McDelivery revenue

7% of the addressable colour-blind population placed orders using our feature in 6 months

Shifted colour-blind audience perception dramatically: 7-point increase in "Brand for Someone Like Me" score.

Feature sparked immediate interest:

A 20% surge in organic app downloads in the first month

Coupled with 54% of new users actively using the Colour-Blind Friendly feature, demonstrates the platform's value and enduring appeal.

Amplified conversation & brand advocacy:

Organic PR valued at ₹3.1 million (organic) and a PR reach exceeding 25 million within five days highlight the platform's ability to spark conversations.

A 48% view-through rate – significantly higher than the 15% industry-standard – demonstrates our video's strong engagement, effectively reaching 9.9 million users.