In its ongoing effort to be (or appear) transparent about its food—where it’s sourced, how it’s prepared, whether it decays—McDonald’s of Australia wants you to play around with its app.
They want you to whip out your phone and use a QR code (I can already feel myself losing interest as soon as I have to do that—and I wrote an article about it here, incidentally, subtitled “The Brilliant Technology We Don’t Know What To Do With” because right now in our shared history that’s generally what the QR code is).
Then you can find out where you food came from!
Hey, I have a giant hole in my afternoon! I think I’ll use it to track where my QSR lunch came from!
Yet my interest returns when I read the following, from an article clearly constructed from a press release, which is an example of what you might get if you point the iPhone at the QR code and from the 3D augmented reality animation chose to learn more about the pickle:
This pickle was grown in the summer in Griffith, New South Wales. It was placed in brine within 12 hours of harvest.”
Ah, summer in New South Wales. “C’mon, then, mate, we ’aveta get these cukes inna brine wiff-in 12 hours, doncha know, so get a wiggle on wiff that wheelbarruh.” I don’t know how they actually speak in New South Wales—that was sort of my Cockney Aussie. Anyway, excuse me as I escape briefly into an idyll.
…okay, I’m back.
I don’t know. It’s wonderful they’re trying to be so transparent about the relative healthfulness of their oft-maligned food. They need to do it. This is a lovely use of QR codes and augmented reality.
Maybe there are scores of people out there ready to play along.
I assume there are no QR codes on the McRibs? Probably best not to ask questions there.
(See, it’s too tempting not to make these easy jokes at McDonald’s expense. That’’s why this is a good and necessary project.)
P.S., BTW, N.B.: Down under, they call Mickey D’s “Macca’s.”
