Comment by phkahler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phkahler | Hacker News Reader

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>> 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,

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.

If you're an engineer, this will surprise you. but, the vast majority of people don't know how to normalize data or even why you'd do it in the first place. cost of a burger of 1/3 lbs vs cost of a burger over 1/4 lbs, ( i don't mean to sound insulting) but the fact is: that's waaayyyy to much thinking for most people (it just doesn't come naturally for people to think like that). Personally, I normalize nuritional data on a per 2000 calorie basis. I've even had a doctor question this, until I explained the concept of normalization. It's just not how non engineers/ non scientists are accustomed to thinking.

In many places nutritional data is required to be normalized to 100g. In the US it's "per-serving" which is super subjective and makes everything complicated to compare.

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).

It's been my observation that most of the time most people simply don't think.

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.

It requires a certain level of self-confidence to publicly ask "why". Many people are afraid of looking stupid and don't ask for clarifications.

The problem with comparing 1/3 to 1/4 is that it’s not immediately apparent how much more. I have to do fraction math to figure out how much more and really 1/12th more isn’t exactly meaningful. All of that has to happen in the consciousness brain so it’s not effective marketing

But it's not a 1/12th more, it's 1/3 more. 1/3 is 33% more than 1/4.

Even HN people struggle with fractions evidently!

A&W should have just called it the "Quarter-plus pounder".

It's a 1/12th of a pound more.

"1/3 to 1/4 is [...] how much more", as is, is ambiguous: on some cultures, "how much more" may depend on the local field of reference (1/3), and on others on the global one (1)

That conclusion requires fraction devision which most folks can’t do in their head. The HN crowd can but it still takes some thought

"Try our new .33 lb burger! It's char-grilled, juicy, and made fresh to order. Beats the other guys wimpy .25 lb burgers by a mile!"

Or convert it to whatever unit is under lbs to make it even more impressive. ("oz"?)

From the article: "More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned the price of our burger."

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.

A similar thing to 2) is probably the reason seemingly every product is priced $x.99. Everyone is probably aware that's basically the same as $(x + 1).00 but when you're on auto-pilot maybe you still feel like the former is a meaningfully better deal. I mean, it must work given how common the practice is.

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