{"id":1770,"date":"2016-03-07T07:06:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T15:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2016-03-07T07:06:10","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T15:06:10","slug":"breaking-news-americans-suck-at-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1770","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: Americans Suck At Math"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0 \u00a0 Okay, so here’s one that’s hard (and not hard) to believe. \u00a0Americans are so bad at math (specifically fractions) that when A & W tried to sell a 1\/3 pound burger, it didn’t sell because people though that it was LESS meat than a 1\/4 pounder at McDonalds, instead of more. \u00a0Yes, you read that right. \u00a0And now excuse me, \u00a0because I’m starting up my own chain and we’re going to be selling 1\/5 pound burgers–we will crush the competition and their petty quarter-pounders and I’ll be rich.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0From Mental Floss.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why No One Wanted A&W’s Third-Pound Burger<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0Americans have loved McDonald\u2019s Quarter Pounder ever since a franchisee introduced the iconic burger to the country in 1972. In the 1980s, A&W attempted to capitalize on the success of the Quarter Pounder\u2014and drum up a little competition for Ronald and friends\u2014by introducing a third-pound burger. The bigger burger gave consumers more bang for their collective buck. It was priced the same as the Quarter Pounder\u00a0but delivered more meat. It even outperformed<\/a> McDonald\u2019s in blind taste tests, with consumers preferring the flavor of A&W\u2019s burger.<\/em><\/p>\n

But when it came down to actually purchasing the third-pound burgers, most Americans simply would not do it. Baffled, A&W ordered more tests and focus groups. After chatting with people who snubbed the A&W burger for the smaller Quarter Pounder, the reason became clear: Americans suck at fractions. Alfred Taubman, who owned A&W at the time, wrote<\/a> about the confusion in his book Threshold Resistance:<\/em><\/p>\n

More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned the price of our burger. “Why,” they asked, “should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald’s? You’re overcharging us.” Honestly. People thought a third of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, three is less than four!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not understanding that a fourth is actually smaller than a third, many consumers eschewed the better-tasting burger in favor of the one they thought was the better deal. According to Taubman, A&W recalibrated their marketing, saying<\/a>, \u201cThe customer, regardless of his or her proficiency with fractions, is always right.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently undaunted by the average American\u2019s less-than-average math skills, McDonald\u2019s tried their own version of the bigger burger, the \u201cAngus Third-Pounder,\u201d in 2007.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It didn\u2019t last, but they gave it another shot with the \u201cSirloin Third Pounder<\/a>\u201d just last year. That one is gone<\/a> now, too, but the mighty Quarter Pounder remains a mainstay.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Okay, so here’s one that’s hard (and not hard) to believe. \u00a0Americans are so bad at math (specifically fractions) that when A & W tried to sell a 1\/3 pound burger, it didn’t sell because people though that it was LESS meat than a 1\/4 pounder at McDonalds, instead of more. \u00a0Yes, you Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-stories","category-retail-trends"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}