Two hands hold up a cheeseburger – Skynesher/Getty Images
The quarter-pound burger has long been the gold standard in weight for beef patties. It’s one of the simplest ways to divide a pound of ground beef: in half, and then in half again. The result is satiating burgers that aren’t too big, nor too small. McDonald’s recognized this in the 1970s, when a franchisee created and coined the Quarter Pounder, and before long, his invention spread like wildfire (there’s a reason the Quarter Pounder with Cheese took the No. 2 spot in Food Republic’s burger ranking).
However, something peculiar happened during the next decade, when fast food giant A&W attempted to take on the QP. The American burger chain, beloved by Canadians, rolled out a one-third-pound hamburger stateside, only for it to flop. But why?
On paper, the third-pounder had everything going for it. It featured a bigger patty than the QP, it was the same price (so Americans would be getting more meat for their dollar), and A&W was marketing the heck out of it. But its sales remained much lower than executives were expecting, particularly for such a great deal. So, to get to the bottom of it, A&W ran some focus groups. The results were astounding. Because the number three is lower than the number four, Americans thought the third-pounder was smaller. Never mind that, in fractions, a third is actually larger than a fourth. They turned up their noses at the idea of paying the same for less.
Read more: Ranking Fast Food Burgers From Worst To Best, According To Reddit
How A&W turned a historic math fail into a fun marketing win
Promotional photo of the 3/9 burger from A&W – A&W Restaurants
After living with the knowledge for nearly 40 years that Americans’ ignorance of fractions led to one of the most storied flops in fast food history (worse than even some of McDonald’s’ menu item fails), in 2021, A&W did the funniest thing possible for its new ad campaign. In reference to the misbegotten idea that the number three is smaller than the number four, and therefore one-third must be smaller than one-fourth, A&W reintroduced its third-pounder as the 3/9-lb. burger. “After all, if people thought ¼ was bigger than ⅓, then they should think 3/9 is way way WAY bigger. Right?” a press release read.
The campaign also suggested that if any restaurant is out of the 3/9 burger, it could replace it with a 2/6-pound burger (mathematically the same size, in case your fractions are still lacking!). The company also released limited marketing materials to help promote the mostly digital campaign. While A&W hasn’t directly attributed its growth in the past few years to this 3/9 promotion, the company has seen a financial shift for the better in the time since beginning it, reporting a 3.1% increase in system sales throughout Q3 when comparing 2024 to 2025 (per Retail Insider).
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Read the original article on Food Republic.
