The Sims Social on Facebook is due for some more in-game product placement, thanks to a one-year deal Electronic Arts has inked with product-purveyor Unilever. Back in January, The Sims Social saw a number of Dove brand hair-care products make their way into the game by way of a virtual Dove Hair Spa that netted players some bathroom upgrades and a "Care & Repair with Dove Hair Therapy shower feature" that yielded "Bling" and "Love" to those who interacted with it. What's next? Some brand-name ice cream adver-items, apparently.

"In just a two week period, over one million The Sims Social players redeemed the Dove Hair Spa virtual items in their games," said Senior Vice President of Global Media Solutions at EA, Dave Madden. "It's a powerful combination of the right game, the right audience and the right gaming platform showing the success that real-world brands can have reaching highly-engaged players."

The press release reveals that a number of other such advertising-based content campaigns are already planned. The next such promotion will highlight "Magnum Mini Ice Cream bars," "Yosicle ice pops" and "Cornetto" ice cream cones.

Although there's no explanation about how the frosty sweet-treats will be implemented,or what benefits players will receive via their virtual consumption, each promotion will apparently tie into previous promotions, thereby offering additional in-game benefits. The Dove hair care campaign, for example, will get an exclusive tab in The Sims Social "Store" that links to special related items, and will wrap in "an engaging in-game quest tasking players to interact with items they previously unlocked from The Sims Social store, strategically linking each phase of the campaign."

Ice cream shampoo, anyone?