Dove's Fall From Above... Not Really

Online brand health, a particularly favorite topic of Libby's lately, has been on my mind. While researching today I happened upon Axe commercials on YouTube and one of the videos displayed the controversy of Unilever owning both Dove and Axe, and the polar opposite views they portray of women. This video showed up in the first 20 results both for Axe and for Dove:



I know this is an older topic, covered heavily about a year ago when the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty came out, and women who were so touched by the campaign were outraged when they found out that their advocates at Dove were in cahoots with their enemies at Axe. Axe users didn't care. I wanted to see, however, where this case ended up. As far as I can tell, this "scandal" received little, if any, response from Unilever, they are producing Dove and Axe commercials as they always have been, and even though there was all this negative buzz (which has dissipated) around their company and their brands, Unilever has enjoyed about a 12% revenue growth over the past year. My thoughts:

1) It's soap. While Dove (and Axe, though more controversially) did generate a stronger reaction from the community than most hygiene products would ever hope to, most people just don't invest any emotions into their soap of choice so weren't scandalized by the news.
2) They are both good ad campaigns, selling what they are supposed to be selling and doing it well.
3) People don't want to punish Dove's good intentions because of Axe's sexual ones.
4) I'm overreacting. This didn't get as much press as I thought because I am a blog whore (especially when it comes to brands and advertising). I'll bet 95% of the people I know have no idea Unilever owns both, but that they wouldn't care anyway.
5) People are more focused on the fact that Unilever owns both SlimFast and Ben & Jerry's. Now there's a controversy.