Watch this right now. Trust me: It’s four minutes and 32 seconds extremely well spent.

Takeaway for marketers: Which person in this video do you identify with the most? If it’s anyone on the client side, you’re in trouble.

DMNews writes about Starburst’s new "Share Something Juicy" campaign, and Digitas certainly did a stellar job of the visual design on the new Starburst site but I think they really missed out on something here.

What does "share something juicy" say to you? Does it suggest sharing Starburst with someone? Or does it suggest sharing some significant story, Web site, tidbit of information or piece of gossip?

Exactly. Starburst has approached this site as assuming someone is a Starburst fanatic and wants to watch a bunch of Starbust-related content. What it could have been is a site that facilitates what the Web is fundamentally all about — sharing information and jokes and cool stuff with each other — and Starburst could have gone along for the ride.

I can’t even find a "share this site" link that would let me easily (and entertainingly) forward a link to this site to a friend. What’s up with that?

Takeaway for marketers: Are you creating something that you want or something that your customers and potential customers might want?

Are you curling up with the Sunday paper today or clicking around on the paper’s Web site while watching the morning gabfests?

Probably the latter. More people are eschewing print for the electronic newsboy all the time, which is why every newsroom from the New York Times on down is laying off staff. Readers are getting angry, too: One News & Observer reader in Durham, North Carolina, is suing the paper for cutting staff.

If you find the ongoing saga of the incredible shrinking print media interesting, you’ll love the July 2 entry in this blog by Jessica DaSilva, an intern at the Tampa Tribune. Seems she got the shorts of a lot of print journalists all up in a bunch when she reported on Tribune Editor in Chief Janet Coats dropping, as Jessica described it, “the reality bomb.”

“People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” she said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

There it is in a nutshell: The Web is no longer an adjunct to the print media, it’s the other way around.

Us new media types have seen this coming for years. Some savvy papers have understood this for a while. Others are just now figuring it out. Those who don’t get it soon will be the first to shut down the presses entirely.

As rough as the newspaper business has been in recent years, it’s going to get an awful lot tougher.

Takeaway for marketers: Doing any local advertising? Make sure you’re doing more than getting your ad in the paper.

DMNews reports on Google’s "democratization of television advertising."

Takeaway for marketers: Veddy interesting.

It’s always been something of an article of marketing faith that “free” is the most powerful word there is. As marketers struggle to connect with potential customers, that golden rule of copy is changing.

Here’s one small example:

Logging on to my AOL account this morning after the long holiday weekend, I have 763 emails, consisting mostly of newsletters to which I’ve subscribed and offers to which I’ve ostensibly opted in. (For years this AOL account has served as my main dumping ground anytime I’m asked for an email address for anything.)

The word “free” appears in the subject lines of 16 emails, promising me free 4th of July e-cards, a free prescription drug savings card, coupons and free samples and, of course, free shipping.

Meanwhile, the word “your” appears in 87 subject lines, professing concern for my earnings, my credit card debt, my home, my family, my car insurance, my identity, my teeth and my toilet bowl, among other things.

That “your” is being used more than five times as often as “free” to catch precious attention makes perfect sense. Cynicism rules, so most people understand that “free” usually isn’t, not by a longshot.

Ah, but “your” — that’s a word that’s personal, not corporate. It’s a word that implies connection and direct one-to-one communication. It’s a sign that the marketer is paying attention not just to the message, but to the mindset of the person receiving the message.

I suppose a special acknowledgment to Sears and Rachael Ray is necessary, since they managed to use the phrase “your free” in their subject lines (“your free Sears gift card” and “your free Rachael Ray cookware package”), thus scoring a rare daily double in my inbox.

Takeaway for marketers: Smart marketing communications means a lot more than arbitrarily slapping “your” into a subject line. Think about the full range of your communications and how you’re speaking to your customers and potential customers.