No One Wanted A&W's Third-Pound Burger (2016)
mentalfloss.com
mentalfloss.com
When it comes to fast food, the order of importance is pretty much: 1. Consistent, 2. Fast, 3. Cheap, 4. Quality. A&W tried to compete on quality and failed because the quality wasn't there, first of all, and because they failed to be consistent, fast, and cheap, which are more important. McDonald's is the absolute best at #1. In the US, Wendy's is superior to McDonald's for a nationwide chain in quality, but the consistency is more variable, so McDonald's rules. Burger King is faster and cheaper, but the consistency is variable, so McDonald's rules. McDonald's understands the ordering of priorities here, and so they win, it's that simple.
McDonald's understands that not everyone will like McDonald's but that almost nobody finds it outright objectionable and many people love it. As long as they keep doing the same thing in every single store or franchise across the country, McDonald's is always a safe choice for stopping into the drive-thru due to that consistency.
A&W failed with the third-pounder because they had bad marketing and because they failed to understand the marketplace to achieve product-market fit, not because Americans are too dumb to understand fractions. I'm sure there's /some people/ who don't understand fractions, but the vast majority of people I've met understand fractions and use them in their daily life...
Right.
>> not because Americans are too dumb to understand fractions.
Wrong. They did research and found that to be a significant factor.
I'm sure there's /some people/ who don't understand fractions, but the vast majority of people I've met understand fractions and use them in their daily life...
That's what I thought years ago when I first heard about this, but you might need to get out into other parts of the world. I see at least 2 kinds of people who will make the mistake 1) People with no math ability (these really do exist) and 2) People who could easily see the difference if they thought about it even a little bit, but 3 vs 4 is smaller at first glance and they never bothered to "think" about it. There are a lot of the second kind of people too. Advertising doesn't usually need people to think, in fact they usually don't want you to do that.
I will say though that I prefer the way you normalize fuel consumption, as distance per units of fuel (miles per gallon), compared to our way of fuel volume per 100 distance units (liters per 100km).
I'm not super smart (nor do I in anyway claim to be) but people often consider me to be smart when really it's all down to two things, I think about things other people don't consider and I have endless curiosity about almost everything, I'm an eternal 5 year old constantly asking why.
They "did research" which found that a handful of people didn't understand fractions, in an unusual group social setting which can easily amplify oddball beliefs if other participants aren't 100% confident.
You can do general polling of a question like this, which will give you actual serious data about whether Americans understand fractions.
Poeple's attachment to certain restaurants is deeper than seeking out the best deal or best taste. Generally I consider an A&W burger superior to Mcdonalds, just as I would consider many boutique burger places superior to mickey ds. Yet the latter has a place in my heart that is really pretty irrational
Just goes to show that the boardroom can absolutely hobble a good management team.
In Canada, on the other hand, it seems to be a major and well-liked brand... As much as I found the slogan "American food" very funny given their reputation here.
Every human (and many non-humans, though they may have more difficulty expressing it) who's had to divide things by three and four knows that knows that a third is more than a quarter. People know in the back of their minds that other people know this. But the dumb lizard brain takes over and they can't help but engage with low effort content that is spun in a way that confirms their biases.
This is the same approach taken by mass-market U.S. beers. The WSJ had an article about this in 2006:
Sitting in the wood-paneled "corporate tasting room" of Anheuser-Busch Cos.' headquarters here, August Busch III surveyed five recently thawed cans of Budweiser beer, representing a quarter of a century of beer history. In the early 1980s, the Anheuser chairman ordered that freshly brewed cans of Budweiser and Bud Light be cryogenically frozen, using technology typically employed in preserving human tissue.
"We wanted to make damn sure we would have the same beer 20 years down the road," said Mr. Busch, 68 years old ... For decades, Anheuser's aim was to develop a beer that would sell across America, one inoffensive enough to appeal to the nation's varied palate.
The article also noted that the references copies showed a gradual decline in hoppiness over the years to make the flavor more middle of the road and inoffensive ... but niche brewers were rising up and about to eat AB's lunch.
When they expanded the "new concept" in Texas, guessing 90s-00s, they were often coupled together with a Long John Silvers and they obviously shared the same fryer because I could taste seafood with the fries. If I order fried seafood that's fine I suppose, but not when I'm ordering a burger and fries for a meal from A&W which has no seafood (AFAIK). I think I tried it twice in total and swore it off. All to say, when it comes to consistency, they weren't even trying.
I like seafood too, just not in my onion rings.
Also, nothing beats whataburger :D. IDK why it's confined to the southern states.
I'm in Northern California, and Phoenix is also our closest Waffle House too.
They were out.
Of A&W root beer.
I haven’t been back.
Some places just can't manage stocking properly, I guess.
Consistency in your product is crucial in the food and beverage industry, because a buyer needs to know what they're getting. If you've already successfully sold them on your product, the repeat sale is only going to happen if they can be assured they're going to get the same thing they liked the first time. Nobody in the industry understands the importance of consistency better than Anheuser-Busch. McDonald's is right there with them on understanding this. Food and beverages are products like anything else, and just like with any product, once you achieve product-market fit, it's important not to make changes that would eliminate or chip away at the fit you have with your customer base.
The linked[1] article below also highlights that "quality light beers are incredibly difficult to brew". So here you have Budweiser/AB excelling on two fronts: a difficult brew and incredible consistency.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/light-bee...
is there a similar tradeoff in brewing? I do notice fairly obvious differences batch-to-batch in microbrews, but I would still prefer the worst batches of my favorite local beers to any AB product I can think of. are they trading away best/average taste for consistency, or is it more a function of the price point (microbrews being quite a bit more expensive)?
The version I'd heard was people associate the ashy taste and dark roast with higher caffeine, even though it's the opposite.
Really though Dominoes changed their recipe a and it doesn't taste like garbage anymore and folks noticed.
I have had similar experiences with A&W franchises being inconsistent / dirty stores, etc.
Wendy's sandwiches here are 2x-3x higher than McD's. Some folks don't expect it - they read the Wendy's menu & then drive next door to McD's.
I've only been to an A&W a couple of times, and in both cases the food was notably subpar--it seemed like something I might find in a school cafeteria, the service was slow, and the ambiance was dingy. I also don't like root beer that much so the restaurant has little draw for me. I'm more surprised that they were able to sell enough to stay in business at all. Customer confusion over the size of the 1/3 pounder is the least of their problems.
Fried fish with malt vinegar, fried cheese curds, frosty mug of root beer - meal of champions
Burger King left France as an abject failure 20 years and re-arrived a few years. What changed? Different marketing and leadership. Trying less to be an American company abroad and more of French fast food company that happens to be American.
I think it's important to understand that it's pretty rare for a business to fail in its home market and succeed elsewhere, so winning in the home market first is important. A&W's home market and McDonald's home market is the US, and in the US McDonald's is /extremely/ consistent nationwide. It's probably the most consistent restaurant in any category.
Rare is correct. It does happen. Packard Bell, for example, an American brand that fell apart in the US was doing significantly well.
That’s … minor.
I ate at a McDonalds in Marrakech (Morocco), and language and minor local menu variations aside, the food and experience was as close to quintessential as any McDonalds I’ve visited in the elsewhere in the world — including, of course, the US.
Correction: .. among people that are into eating junk food
I can assure you there are many many people that would not touch Mickey-D, nor Wendy's, nor Burger King.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180222-how-can-a-fast...
The fries and the sugary drinks are the real junk.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/business/mcdonalds-marion-gro...
But the McDonald's where I live are all disasters, and the one A&W we had (until recently, when it got replaced by a new VW dealership) was really nice, with table service and frosty mugs.
Usually when I'm getting drive-through on a road trip so I can't even go back and complain about it.
And then "McD is 4, ours is 5"!
all the A&W restaurants are clean and courteous, amazed at the employees commitment at a probably min wage job.
1)you are greeted at the door as you enter, open the door as you come and go for you.
2)if you are eating indoors, they will bring the food to you like a sit down restaurant (just you paying up front).
3)they come by and ask about refills, or ordering any other items
4)come by and offer treats.
5)all the food is made to order.
6)the quality is good, hormone free quality beef.
my understanding canadian AW is operated by a diff company than US AW, so maybe different policies and practices
Everything else is just a comment on A&W in the last decade or two and holds no bearing on the quarter/third pounder topic. The war was won even before your hierarchy of what's important could be standardized over large geographic areas, which is really unclear to me how much it matters/is accurate. feels like conjecture. I could postulate what I think is important to the American consumer, but, again, conjecture.
It seems possible that people questioned the price, not because they were confused about fractions, but because they thought that the burger was too low in quality to justify the same price as a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.
[edit: While they say that A&W's burger outperformed in blind taste tests, those taste tests could have had methodological differences (or even just a different sample of the population) that would make it impossible to compare their results to those of the focus groups.]
[edit 2: New Coke also outperformed regular Coke in blind taste tests and was also priced the same. But it was a massive failure, and not because of mathematical confusion.]
Second, the third pounder later changed it's name to the Papa Burger. Though there's a lot of discussion claiming the name "third pounder" hurt sales, I can't find any information about how the change in name effected sales. And even after the name change, it still doesn't seem to have been nearly as successful as the quarter pounder or the whopper.
Third, the way A&W management talk about this makes it seem like if they just offered up a larger burger a good chunk of the population would come to them instead of McDonald's. It sounds like they convinced themselves that "bigger burger" was going to be a hugely successful campaign, but it's likely a lot of people didn't care that much.
I wouldn't be surprised if some people opted for the quarter pounder because they're bad at fractions, but my guess is that there are other, more important factors involved. When choosing a fast food place I doubt the first thing that pops into most people's minds is "how many ounces are in everyone's signature burgers?"
I heard the same story in the 1980s & again in the 1990s and it was about Wendy's ⅓lb burgers. There were no A&Ws in either of those markets.
Should have called it the “pebble pounder” (0.02 stone—sure, it doesn’t make sense really, but it sounds nice, doesn’t it?) Or the “fifteen’r” (150 grams is about a third of a pound).
Yes. 'Third' means 1/3 but also place number three. Whereas 'quarter' means 1/4 but not 'forth'.
Are you making the same typo or using a new word here? Let's get past the typo.
I have never seen the word quarter used to mean multiply by 4. If I was told to quarter something, I would divide it into fourths. When/where were you taught or come to understand that quarter means to multiply. If you quarter something, you went from one item to four items. Is that your understanding of multiplying? You didn't go to 4 items though you went to four 1/4 items.
I just have never in my experience seen quarter mean multiply by 4. If there's something to be learned, I'm up for learning it.
You made a typo (quater) in correcting someone's else's typo (forth). Several people have pointed out the irony and have patiently tried to teach you a new word, but you seem to keep reading past all of them without comprehending ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Quater is not a unit (or a word) so why would it ever mean 'fourth'? Quarter is probably the word you're looking for.
More likely their product teams would have done better with a name that didn't refer to the portion size.
I propose: The PILE OF MEAT burger
The BIG PILE OF MEAT burger
The REALLY BIG PILE OF MEAT burger
BURGER
FAT BURGER
BIG FAT BURGER
GINORMOUSLYUGE BIG FAT BURGER
(To encourage association of more letters more meat)
I agree with GP that "Third pounder" was a terrible name.
Bigger Burger is great! Aliterates, rhyming, and TWO plosives!
So, one night, we go to McDonalds and I see "quarter pounder" on the menu. It just sounds big ... waaaaayyy bigger than 113 grams (I have no problems converting among different units). But, subconsciously, I had expected something that would take some effort to eat.
I don't think I've had another one in the intervening decades.
I would have preferred "quarter and twelfth", advertised with a "I'll take an extra twelfth!" catch phrase :)
To anyone here it's obvious that this is the same as a "0.1%" rate, but I do suspect that to a not-insignificant proportion of the population, they'd consider "10 > 1", and conclude that this account is better for them than another one offering "0.2%" interest.
I realise this might be a stretch, but to look at it another way, should a bank be allowed to advertise their savings rate as "0.100%" or "0.10000%"?
> It must round the annual percentage yield, the annual percentage yield earned, and the interest rate to the nearest one-hundredth of one percentage point (.01%) and express them to two decimal places. (p.17)
Personally, I don't see what the problem would be with 0.10%, doesn't seem misleading in the slightest. I also love how the regulation is called "Truth in Savings", like how could anybody be against it?
I always read 1.2.11 as < 1.2.2
For anyone getting confused that 0.1 == 0.10, then how is that the writer's fault? There are formatting requirements that require a significant digit number of places (scientific notation as an example). I don't know that actually applies to bank marketing material, but it could be a style guide type of thing to keep numbers formatted the same. Either way, it does not change the value of the number. If you misread it, it is not the company's fault. They have provided factual information.
That’s really not a fair argument given advertising and marketing theory and schemes.
Who knows about this particular case since we don’t know if the 0.10% needed to be compared to other rates like 0.08%, where the formatting would maybe make more sense. But it’s not beyond imagination that someone could try to hook a customer with numbers. It’s done all the time with the whole $8.99 thing.
Either way, I've learned basic maths. .1 == .10. I would be willing to guess that the average public would not think that .10 > .1, and that this whole confusion is really only for developers that have started using decimal notation in versions where .10 > .1 is true.
Doubtful it matters in this case, but that extra zero can convey extra meaning.
They just did 6.9 and the next one will be 7.0.
But this really only works over long periods of time because they only do two releases a year.
It took me a bit to get my head around Linux kernel versioning where the 2nd digit just goes up until they feel like it's time for a new first digit version.
I’ve often seen rates given by banks with at least one extra digit and wondered why.
It never occurred to me it was a marketing ploy.
Yes. Lotteries still exist. What's another tax on the mathematically illiterate?
That was maybe a month ago, still the same.
I'm not the most impressed, I found a bug in their iOS app that would multiply monetary values by 100 when doing various (normal) text editing steps as you input values. I found this by nearly transferring £1000 instead of £10 to a friend. The bug was an honest mistake with `NSNumberFormatter` in the iOS SDK, but I feel like a bank can't make "honest mistakes" at that sort of level.
This seems like one of those things that sounds like it is true but is just too convenient.
It is really convenient to put out a story about how Americans are bad at fractions.
In addition, the story originally came from a book the guy that owned A&W wrote. Thus he would have incentive both to create a good story and to deflect blame from himself to American stupidity.
Finally, Americans use the imperial system with cups, etc and there are always a ton of fractions like 1/3, 1/4 in recipes. I bet most American households have measuring cups of 1/3 and 1/4 cup in size and surely know that the 1/3 cup is bigger than the 1/4 cup.
For me this story just seems to good to be true and I would take it with a huge (1/3 pound) grain of salt.
You are betting that most Americans cook often and cook using written recipes. That's a very bold assumption.
I expect most people who cook a lot just know "how much is enough", and people who don't cook a lot, well, they just don't cook much if at all. This is compounded by the story being about customers of fast-food joints, who likely fall disproportionately in the "don't cook at all" camp.
This article is a distraction from what really happened here - insanely bad marketing. Third pounder is a terrible name for a burger. It’s derivative and implies gluttony.
I have measuring cups. Do I actually ever use them? No. Would that make me unfamiliar with their size, if I weren't decent at math? Probably.
It depends on what one is making of course, but most people who cook (and, especially, bake) a lot absolutely measure things.
If you wanted to find out the actual incidence of this confusion, you'd want a test structured in a really different way from this.
I don’t think these were dumb people. It did open my eyes to the difference in education quality in the US. I say all of that to say that while anecdotal seems plausible. One very distinct error they made was to see a high number denominator as being bigger than a lower number denominator.
Of course, it doesn't help that mathematics is treated as second-class in standardized testing. You can hand-wave away a low math score as long as you're avoiding a technical major, unlike, say English (assuming America here).
I will admit to having to re-learn how logarithms work nearly every time I use them. And each time, it's pretty obvious based on the websites I see with instructions that logs are taught to like sixth graders.
They also advertise a lot of "no hormones, grass-fed, cruelty-free, local farmers" etc in their advertising. And they were the first big company to sell the "Beyond Burger."
Seems really different than the American version.
Whatever their plan is, as you mentioned the brand doesn’t resonate well with Americans.
I always found that answer really strange (how can "next exit 3 3/4 miles" be more intuitive than "next exit 3.75 miles"?), and this A&W anecdote kind of proves my point. If the burgers were measured in grams there could be no confusion about 400g being greater than 300g.
I have this 2-5/8 tile I need to split in half. Ok, 1-5/16. Contrast that with 2.625 / 2 = 1.3125.
I'm sure tradespeople who use metric have their own ways of making simple calculations in their heads, but that's an example of why a lot of people who work with fractions prefer them.
These rounding errors add up. And you can't really get away with sticking to metric because (in the USA) you're bound run into a situation where you have to buy pre-fabbed goods measured in SAE.
So now you need to not only deal with decimal to fraction conversions, but remember the "special cases" like 3/8ths.
Anyone who works with hand tools should already be familiar with both metric and imperial and converting between them at this point, especially in the UK where /both/ measurement systems are used.
To me it feels like those videos of people who lost their arms and learned to play the drums with their feet.
Impressive, but also born out of limitations.
> tradespeople who use metric
2.625 / 2 = Divide each digit by 2 = 1 . 3 1 (2.5) = 1.3125
Most of the time it isn't needed because there isn't a lot of those fractions going around to begin with. The problem isn't the units, themselves (inches, etc). It's that their relation isn't 10.
That's a feature. 10 isn't divisible by 3.
The latter is much easier to think about IMO.
But I will grant you, converting between denominators makes my head hurt in the imperial system. Overall I do still think metric is easier as a whole.
Calculations with those numbers are trivial to make, and when they aren't trivial those numbers are also easier to type on a calculator than fractions.
Significant digest isn't only something they teach in physics, it exists in the real world.
Not as easy.
Why not create a fifth pounder then?
Also the store locations tend to be in not so great spots compared to their competitors, and their food offerings aren't good enough for me to go out of my way. I've also never seen a coupon book for A&W in my mail so that doesnt help.
Cherry to top it all off is the last time i went to one. The root beer tasted bad. (pretty sure the machine was running out of syrup)
They have gone down hill in terms of quality, or at least tye one near me.
I'm not a fast person food guy, but recently was hungry enough to go into my local store.
$6 for a terrible burger. It was lunch so I guess they made a lot expecting a rush, but this is the first time I thought about returning food.
From what I've heard A&W in Canada is a top-tier fast food chain while it's barely hanging on in the States.
If A&W US took a few ideas from their sister company here up north, they could seriously find themselves in contention for the best fast food in the country
Good to know that I shouldn't have the same expectation if I try an A&W in the US!
[0] https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/201...
Let's face it. Quarter-pounder sounds way better. What does even third-pound mean? When I read the article title I haven't even immediately recognized it as meaning one-third of a pound.
I am sure A&W would fare much better if they introduced "bigger quarter-pounder".
The same way The Beatles has always been the name of a band and seems like a great name until you think about it and realize it is the same quality pun name as is common to use for hair salons.
The only A&W I ever tried had taken over the old "Sonic" location, and the comparison made Sonic positively glow in every way. I think they stayed in operation 3 months or so; and they were across the street from the town hospital. The hospital had better food.
Hardee's does "Monster" and before that " $6 Dollar Burger" instead of 1/2 pound
I have seen people use 8 oz in marketing
I have not seen anyone advertise a "1/2 Pounder"
And no, the sandwiches would not be equivalent. Two quarter pound patties cook faster, even serially, than one half pounder. Plus, you typically pair each patty with a slice of cheese when making cheeseburgers, so the bread/meat/cheese ratio is completely different.
Hollywood writers couldn't make this stuff up.
This anecdote is a common one to share when the intent is to bemoan the intelligence or decline of America, but I am starting to think there's more to this story.
Consider a few points:
First off-- being bad at math doesn't mean a general lack of intelligence. I've met plenty of college educated, liberal minded people who openly say that math is their weakness. I've met people with masters degrees who struggle with math. The American student loan crisis should be evidence enough that even college educated people struggle with math.
Second-- the decision to buy a burger is not one that is often carefully measured and considered. It's more of a "do I pull off this highway right now to get this burger?" and in that moment, you're acting more on instinct that rationality. So in that moment yes, 1/3 < 1/4, it's not ideal but our brain makes a lot of other more serious fallacies.
Third-- does anyone here really doubt that if you explained to those focus groups that 1/3 is larger than 1/4 they still wouldn't understand? I don't. I'm sure those focus groups quickly did understand, but the conclusion drawn was that unless it was explained to the broader public, everyone would make the same incorrect initial assumption.
Fourth-- let's just be honest, fractions are confusing. 1/3 > 1/4 is confusing to read and understand quickly. I still can make this mistake from time to time. In the special case of 1/4 vs 1/3 even text is confusing. "Quarter pounder" just sounds larger than "third pounder", "quarter" is a heftier word. If you don't think sound informs meaning, why do so many sports cars have "Z" in their model name instead of "K"? The only way this would be really clear is if McDonalds was calling it a ".25 pounder" and then A&W could launch a ".33 pounder"
In my opinion, wielding this anecdote as an example about the sad state of anything, people, intelligence, America, etc, is ill-informed. If it's unfortunate that American's often confuse fractions, it's even more unfortunate that the confusion is easily turned into a powerful meme that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Mind you, I also think there are differences in natural aptitude and the degree to wich on connects with the subject. Speaking for myself, I mostly did well through high school math--geometry proofs less so--but mostly just got by on the more advanced math I needed for an engineering degree.
(Then I tutored a group of students in business school who basically handle high school level algebra.)
> This anecdote is a common one to share when the intent is to bemoan the intelligence or decline of America, but I am starting to think there's more to this story.
No. Absolutely not. The lowest common denominator of intelligence should not define our approach to mathematical syntax. Fractions are important.
12am < 10am < 11 am
The obvious fix would be switching to 24hr.
Obviously there's zero chance of switching to that at this point from a pragmatic point of view but it does just work out fine.
It’s currently 1300, an hour ago was 1200, two hours was 1100
I've seen way too many people's faces glaze over immediately as soon as a number enters the conversation.
so what? you are imagining a law that says you must name your food in decimals, not fractions? What does “doing away with fractions” mean in your imagination?