3 ms·

Burger Kings Third-of-a-Pound failed because people thought it was less meat then a quarter pounder. Because 4 is greater than 3.

Kranar 4y ago
It was A&W and it's almost certainly BS. The only source for this was a single restaurant that hired a marketing firm to identify the reason for the failure. The marketing firm conducted a single focus study, whose methodology remains unknown but reported that one participant in the study asked why they should pay more money for a smaller product. Let me tell you something about marketing firms, many of don't exactly hire competent statisticians or people with a rigorous scientific background to investigate matters, and I doubt the situation was any better back in the 80s. Even today I've seen such firms ask leading questions, push people to give certain answers, have incredibly biased or non-random focus groups, or many other very basic mistakes.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  > The firm eventually conducted a focus group to discover the truth: participants were concerned about the price of the burger. "Why should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat?" they asked. > It turns out the majority of participants incorrectly believed one-third of a pound was actually smaller than a quarter of a pound. [1] Sure maybe only a single person asked the question but it sounds like they then polled the entire focus group afterwards. I'm not too sure what leading question to ask to get somebody who understands 1/3 > 1/4 to answer the inverse. [1]: https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractio...
  - Kranar 4y ago
    My position is to remain highly skeptical of this story. The single source of this entire anecdote comes from a book written by A&W's owner at the time (Alfred Taubman) that is left almost intentionally vague and has a clear conflict on interest. The book makes a lot of unsourced and unverified claims about how A&W's burger tasted better than McDonald's in blind tests, and a bunch of other claims about how A&W should have outperformed McDonalds, but all because Americans are too stupid to know that 1/3 is larger than 1/4, A&W failed to capture market share and that's why they had a major decline in the 80s. There is no other source for this story whatsoever other than the literal owner of A&W. The marketing firm (Yankelovich, Skelly and White) never released any details, no one else at the company ever wrote about it, and there's no way to independently verify any of these details to really understand what actually happened. As an FYI, McDonald's had a third pounder burger on their menu for 6 or so years and never seemed to have any issue with customers reporting feeling ripped off because of it. They removed it along with all of their premium menu items as part of an effort to simplify their offerings.

Kranar 4y ago

It was A&W and it's almost certainly BS. The only source for this was a single restaurant that hired a marketing firm to identify the reason for the failure. The marketing firm conducted a single focus study, whose methodology remains unknown but reported that one participant in the study asked why they should pay more money for a smaller product. Let me tell you something about marketing firms, many of don't exactly hire competent statisticians or people with a rigorous scientific background to investigate matters, and I doubt the situation was any better back in the 80s. Even today I've seen such firms ask leading questions, push people to give certain answers, have incredibly biased or non-random focus groups, or many other very basic mistakes.

lesuorac 4y ago
> The firm eventually conducted a focus group to discover the truth: participants were concerned about the price of the burger. "Why should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat?" they asked. > It turns out the majority of participants incorrectly believed one-third of a pound was actually smaller than a quarter of a pound. [1] Sure maybe only a single person asked the question but it sounds like they then polled the entire focus group afterwards. I'm not too sure what leading question to ask to get somebody who understands 1/3 > 1/4 to answer the inverse. [1]: https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractio...
- Kranar 4y ago
  My position is to remain highly skeptical of this story. The single source of this entire anecdote comes from a book written by A&W's owner at the time (Alfred Taubman) that is left almost intentionally vague and has a clear conflict on interest. The book makes a lot of unsourced and unverified claims about how A&W's burger tasted better than McDonald's in blind tests, and a bunch of other claims about how A&W should have outperformed McDonalds, but all because Americans are too stupid to know that 1/3 is larger than 1/4, A&W failed to capture market share and that's why they had a major decline in the 80s. There is no other source for this story whatsoever other than the literal owner of A&W. The marketing firm (Yankelovich, Skelly and White) never released any details, no one else at the company ever wrote about it, and there's no way to independently verify any of these details to really understand what actually happened. As an FYI, McDonald's had a third pounder burger on their menu for 6 or so years and never seemed to have any issue with customers reporting feeling ripped off because of it. They removed it along with all of their premium menu items as part of an effort to simplify their offerings.