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.

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) dynamite first-quarter performance is a direct result of its ability to deliver the right advertising content to the right visitor. Now, Google is in the process of compiling demographics about its YouTube audience, groundwork that will allow Google to turn the user-developed content leader into a similar cash machine.

According to an article in Advertising Age, the CMO of YouTube, Suzie Reider, equates the YouTube visitor viewing habits to "a real-time focus group that happens every day." The results of YouTube's first in-depth viewer metrics are due this fall, whetting advertisers' appetites for the Christmas season. The information could lead to more than just ancillary ad placements; it could also inform content in the production of "advertainments," along the lines of Dove's Real Beauty campaign.

Reider also shared a couple of tidbits that should please Google investors. Despite acceding to Viacom's demand to pull its content from YouTube, traffic has continued to grow. That viewership is also growing increasingly international. 70% of its 45 million users are now from outside the U.S.

Google has also tripled the staff of YouTube since its purchase, which also speaks to its intention to aggressively protect and grow marketshare.