Mayor Bloomberg's war on sugar.

If his goal was to make people think about what they drink, he's succeeded. But I think his goal was to make people thinner. At that he's going to fail... though, indirectly, over a long period of time, he might win.

Right now, it definitely looks like he picked the wrong battle. Given all the resources at his disposal, you'd think he might have chosen a batter way to run his war, or a better war.

What's that got to do with marketing?

Lots.

I've wasted time on projects that weren't bringing any money. So have you. I called it testing long after I knew the results of the test.

But I know of some people in the IM world who've been promoting the same product, the same way, for almost 2 years. I know I've been after them for at least 1 year to change either how they promote or what they promote. My preference is the how. But they're still doing it.

Success here comes faster if you test a lot. If tests have short time frames. If you don't try to make something work but find something that works to work on.

Or, in short, success comes when you pick the right battles. You need to know when to stop something.