AdAge wrote a glowing hagiography of Visa's newly-appointed VP of online advertising and emerging media platforms, Jon Raj. A fervent pusher of useful online marketing options, Raj said that Visa's spending on interactive media has increased in all four of the past years, although he wouldn't admit to specific proportions. During that time, Raj had been one of the company's directors of advertising.

Visa has been spending enormous sums on expensive media and sponsorships, like last summer's Olympics (during which the credit card behemoth saw its web traffic share actually decline).

About two and a half years ago, iMedia interviewed Raj, asking him what he thought was necessary to get companies to better allocate their marketing budgets, presumably pushing more to online media. "The educating and evangelizing unfortunately only go so far… We need to set a place for ourselves at the planning table and not only question, but also challenge our companies’ planning/allocating habits"

Raj went on to squeeze Visa's online agency, AKQA, into Visa's planning process, alongside traditional agency BBDO.

Raj said that Visa will test out new digital initiatives, such as a wireless promotion to break in May on PDAs and smart phones. Also on deck are DVR studies trying to get at just what makes people skip ads, and when the have the highest propensity to do so.