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Famously, the Third-Pound burger failed horribly, for the same price as McDonald's Quarter-Pounder. In focus groups investigating what went wrong, A&W discovered most people thought 1/3 is smaller than 1/4 and were thus getting less meat for the same price...
This has always struck me as a self-flattering urban legend people trot out to mock the burger-eating proles. Turns out the only evidence we have of this anecdote is a quote from the memoirs of A&W's former CEO, years after the fact, attempting to deflect blame for running his company into the ground. "I didn't fuck up; the customers were just too stupid to understand how superior our product was!"
So it might be true, but I'd take that story with a grain of salt.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/great-third-pound-burger-ripoff/
Maybe they failed because they were trying to copy McDonalds too closely? Skip the "we give you a third of a pound for the same price as a quarter of a pound" and instead emphasise "fresh beef, better taste, superior value".
The Third Pound just sounds like really bad marketing, because they were chasing the established hold McDonalds had with their quarter-pounders. I could easily see someone going "but I don't want more meat in my burger; a quarter-pounder is big enough for me!" or if they did want more meat, then they'd go for two burgers.
It's like someone trying to compete against Coke by going "we're just like Coke only we have bigger bottles" - that's not different enough to make me switch from Coke. What's unique about your product?
That anecdote does sound too much like "it can't be our fault the product failed, it was the dumb consumers!" Tell that to New Coke 😁 Even if your customers are dumb, they are still your (potential) customers so if this approach isn't working, scrap it and go for one that does: "bigger and better for the same price!" Don't call it a third pounder, compare "we have over 5 ounces of prime fresh beef in every burger versus 4 ounces of processed meat in our rivals" to sell it, not mess around with trying to copy the brand name of a McDonalds product that is already well-established. Call it the Big Beautiful Burger! 🤣
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Large pizzas are usually a good deal for the same reason as 16" vs 12" sounds like only a third more pizza.
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Each day I think my opinion of people has hit rock bottom but somehow they manage to drill further into that bedrock. Such a person being given the vote is the root cause of I'd wager at least 50% of modern evil.
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Sounds like McDonald's should've sold a 1/5 burger for the same price then.
Apparently that's the Big Mac; it has two 1/10th of a pound patties to the Quarter-Pounder's one 1/4 of a pound patty. 2/10ths = 1/5th, so that's the 1/5 burger right there!
People pick either Quarter Pounders or Big Mac for reasons other than amount of meat; the Big Mac has more options while the Quarter Pounder is plain meat-and-bun (and cheese and condiments). Depends if you want the flavour of the pickles and sauce versus just 'gimme the meat' (and give it to me raw?)
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Sell it on a slight discount as the 'really big deal for a really big meal' or something.
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