Another reason Unilever may shun the upfront

It makes sense that Unilever appears to be on the bubble (per Jack Neff at Ad Age) about whether or not to participate in the network upfront, and not just because, as Neff says, it's predominantly female target doesn't require it to lock in certain programs in order to get the reach it needs. Unilever is that still rare client that has also had several breakout successes in the last year or so in terms of using the digital media to move hearts and minds, and some product, as well. First, there was the integrated Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty," which used voting techniques that heavily relied on digital media to get consumers to vote on what they perceived to be a beautiful woman, and then there was the knockout success of the Dove "Evolution" viral (above), which has had about 3.5 million views on YouTube alone. The company has seen that this newfangled digital stuff can work, and do it—compared to spending millions of dollars on airtime—on the cheap.