Viacom’s MTV has created Digital Fusion, “a new organization whose mission is to fuse marketing and innovation in order to connect brands to consumers.” What they are doing is, of course, emblematic of digital marketing today–something still off the radar of the public. Among the goals of Digital Fusion are to “…identify, analyze and recommend new ad sales products and opportunities in emerging media.” Viral marketing is also on its agenda, including “…influencing content and creative for novel advertising and marketing initiatives…leveraging off-network traffic: viral, web services, email, SEO/SEM efforts [search engine optimization/marketing]…Germinate grass roots offline efforts (street, events, etc.)…”
The public, policymakers–and MTV partners (such as the Knight Foundation)–will need to keep on eye on the largely stealth forces shaping the new media.
