Cautionary tales always make for interesting reading.

"How Burger King Got Burned in Quest To Make the Perfect Fry" (Wall Street Journal, January 16, p. A1,) is a perfect example. I read the article with great interest, and not just because it confirmed my feeling that BK’s fries are awful, an opinion I have held since they debuted on January 2, 1998 (a.k.a. "Free Fryday"). Rather, I found the article to be a fascinating example of how logistical problems derailed a product that research indicated was a winner.

Burger King’s surveys had shown that consumers wanted a fry that was crispy and would retain its heat. The current fries just weren’t the answer, so the company hit on the idea of a coated fry that would retain heat and also deliver the sought-after crunchiness. The company rounded up a team of 100 marketing execs, food scientists, franchisees, and other personnel and charged them with the task of developing the Perfect Fry, one that would deliver audible crunches for seven or more chews (how they settled on seven, I have no idea). The crunch requirement was just one of the parameters listed in 19 pages of specifications for the new fries.

(The article delves into such esoteric concepts as "toothpack" - the degree to which a fry sticks to the surface of a tooth - and "marriage" - in which two fries bond together by one-third of their surface. As a person who probably consumes double the 26 pounds of french fries the government says we eat per capita annually, I love the fact that there are people whose job it is to worry about how many times a fry crunches or how much it sticks to a tooth.)

The fries were a hit initially - BK’s independent research showed that 57 percent of a national sample picked its fries as best (compared to the 35 percent who favored the fries of second-place McDonald’s - which to me are still the best fast-food fries you can get, even if they aren’t cooked in beef tallow anymore). But they were devilishly complicated to cook, despite the company’s efforts to "certifry" 300,000 restaurant managers and crew in their preparation. And after a strong start, sales fell and franchisees grew angry. Whether due to cooking problems, bad potato crops, or, as I suspect, people finally realizing the fries are crummy, Burger King knew it had to make a change. So the company is promising to debut a new fry this year - one that’s still coated but not quite as coated.

As an observer of the marketing research industry, I can’t help but feel for the researchers whose surveys uncovered the need to develop a better fry. I’m sure it sounded like a great idea at the time, and one that made good business sense, given the huge profit margins on fries. But perhaps 19 pages of specs might have been a sign that attaining french fry acme day after day, batch after batch, might be impossible, especially factoring in the human element, equipment variances, etc.

The Burger King fry fiasco won’t rank up there with New Coke on the list of product debacles, but it’s another example of the notion that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

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It’s been a while since we last checked in at the Quirk’s Web site (www.quirks.com). In that time, just over a year, our Webmeister Dan Quirk has been busy growing and changing the site - all for the better, we hope!

The first things you’ll notice are the new look and the improved navigation. Now, on any page of the site you can see the subsections for the section you’re in as well as the site as a whole.

We’ve also added nearly 10,000 company listings, in the form of online versions of our many print directories. In addition to the online version of the Researcher SourceBook, you can now access our directories of focus group, telephone, and mall research facilities, and search for moderators (in the Moderator MarketPlace), mystery shopping providers, ethnic research firms, and data processing and statistical analysis companies. So next time you’re on the road and don’t have your printed copy of a Quirk’s directory handy, just head to the Web and access the e-version.

And by the time you read this, all of the articles from the 2000 issues should be accessible in the Article Archive. The searchable Archive stretches back to 1992, and if you find a story you’d like to share with a friend, just fill out a short form to send them a link to the article. The Job Mart continues to be a popular feature, now holding over 100 postings, with more added every day. If you are looking for a job or looking to fill a position, check out the Job Mart.

All of these new features, and the ones we have planned for the near future, are part of our goal of making our Web site and our printed magazine the places you visit when you need information on marketing research.