Marié Digby is a big hit on Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. The 24-year-old's version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" is receiving airtime across the country, and her videos have been viewed over 2 million times. Last week, Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Hollywood Records announced they'd signed her to a contract.

A nice rags to riches story, heh? Except it isn't. The Wall Street Journal stripped the everywoman cover off of Digby by revealing that she'd signed with the record company back in '05. Her YouTube-based PR campaign was carefully constructed by Hollywood Records to launch her in a way that would gain the cache of authenticity viewers grant to user-developed content.

Last year's controversial "LonelyGirl15" campaign demonstrated that some of the smartest people in America work in marketing. Noting the over-the-top success of that program, the ad industry is now awash with companies promising to launch viral campaigns of this nature, inspiring person-to-person emails for their product (you gotta see this!), and playing on the sense of ownership we have when we think we've discovered something authentic that others haven't.

The question here, I think, is one of transparency. Obviously, in light of the way the internet has evolved, we plebeians are willing to trade some of our time viewing advertising in return for otherwise free content. I'm not convinced, however, that we are willing to embrace stealth marketing, where the message is disguised such that we may not identify it as advertising.

The ruse of Digby's launch is minuscule in scope, but nonetheless causes me to trust what I see and read just a little less. And suspicion is an anathema to marketing.

The wait is over -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has finally completed the purchase of advertising company aQuantive as of this week. Now that the $6 billion purchase is over and done, it's time for the results to be under the microscope: How long will it take Microsoft to use this new muscle against powerful foe Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)? Or let's rephrase that -- will it even matter?

As of Monday, aQuantive was officially a "Microsoft wholly-owned subsidiary" and the board disbanded. Oddly, this deal has received a fair amount of attention, but not really enough since it is the largest-ever acquisition by the world's largest software company. Is Redmond placing a bet on its future here outside of operating systems and office productivity software? That seems fairly clear.

Will internet advertising outside of Google's successful and unobtrusive model work wonders like all these recent advertising acquisitions make it appear? The further infiltration of advertising into our online lives will only spur many forms to obliterate it. Firefox, a worthy web browser alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, already has tools like AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock that can almost completely eliminate online advertising. Will Google's DoubleClick purchase and Microsoft's aQuantive buy be busts due to consumer backlash against so much advertising on the internet? We'll check back in 2010.

To my surprise, Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) has apparently decided to push, rather than pull, its moribund Bud.tv web site. According today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the brewer plans to inject the site with edgier content in hopes of luring back the hundreds of thousands who tasted the limited access site and spat it out.

After peaking at a quarter million unique visitors in February following a Superbowl ad,, the site has fallen to numbers below comScore's threshold for reporting (100,000). The company had been shooting for 3-5 million. Ouch.

The site came under criticism from attorneys general across the country, who weren't satisfied with the viewer verification process and feared youngsters would be exposed to advertising for alcohol (horrors!) In response, the company dialed up the registration process to a point beyond many people's (well, mine at least) tolerance level.

Despite a $30 million budget, the site has failed to retain viewers, and most analysts expected the company to pull the plug. Their suspicions seemed to be confirmed last week when the CEO said that the site would 'fade' in the last half of '07.

Anheuser Busch, apparently convinced the problem lies in content, decided instead to try again, promising to provide more targeted and interesting features, to become the go-to aggregator of beer-related entertainment.

I don't agree with its thinking, though. We internet viewers are a fickle lot, and the slightest impediment to their browsing is enough to send us away. If the site retains its barrier to entry, the content will have to be freaking fantastic to capture its target audience.