Dear Adobe, please unsubscribe me (by post)
Discover the story behind our postal unsubscribe request to Adobe and the email critique we sent with it.
Dear Adobe, Please Unsubscribe Me (By Post)
Discover the story behind our postal unsubscribe request to Adobe and the email critique we sent along with it.
I recently received an email from Adobe about Premiere Pro. I was about to delete it, but out of habit, I scrolled to the footer. That’s when I noticed something that stopped me:
“send an unsubscribe request to the postal address above”.
The analogue nature of this request was striking, to say the least. Unsubscribing from a digital mailing list by sending a physical letter to Dublin felt like a relic from a bygone era.
And let's be honest, this is Adobe. They pioneered the shift to software subscriptions, a model that now has freelancers and agencies in a perpetual headlock. The idea of lodging a small, physical, and deeply inconvenient complaint with the digital giant was too good to pass up.
Is This Necessary?
First, I needed to know: is this actually normal? A quick search revealed that providing a physical address is a legal requirement. However, it’s not required by GDPR. It's a ghost of email law past; a remnant of the 2003 American CAN-SPAM Act that has stubbornly persisted in email marketing compliance templates.
So, this wasn't just an Adobe quirk. It was a 20-year-old piece of American legislation haunting a 2025 email from an Irish subsidiary. This discovery sealed the deal; I had to send the letter.
Since I was spending my own money on an international stamp, I decided to offer them some free advice.
Here are the three points I made:
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The hero image is a chaotic collage of twenty different designs. It's meant to scream ‘variety’, but it just creates a wall of visual noise where nothing stands out.
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Showing three distinct examples, perhaps one for a corporate video and one for a travel vlog, would make the point with more confidence and clarity.
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Their main hero image was a 500kb transparent PNG. For a company that owns Photoshop, this seems a bit rough.
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A quick trip to TinyPNG.com got it down to 130kb with no visible quality loss. TinyPNG’s compression algorithm feels like black magic to me. I’m curious, what does everyone else use? Let me know in the comments.
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For a company that knows every piece of software I've ever subscribed to, the email was remarkably generic. There was no personalisation beyond my name.
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A simple nod to the fact that I’m a Premiere Pro user ("new ways to use your favourite editor") would have made the entire message feel less like a broadcast and more like a conversation.
With my feedback drafted, it was time to write the letter itself.
The Letter
To: The Analogue Unsubscribe Department Adobe Systems Software Ireland Limited 4-6 Riverwalk, Citywest Business Park Dublin 24, Ireland
Subject: A Postal Unsubscribe Request
Dear Adobe (and more specifically, the poor soul who has to open the physical mail),
Please unsubscribe me from the Adobe Premiere Pro marketing email list.
A few questions, if you don’t mind. First, are you okay? Do you get many of these letters? I have this image of you sitting in a single room, surrounded by dusty sacks of unsubscribe requests from around the globe. I hope that’s not the case.
Secondly, for future reference, is carrier pigeon an acceptable alternative for these requests? I feel it would better capture the spirit of this whole endeavour.
I’ve also included a few notes on your email design on the back of this letter, just some friendly advice from one marketer to another.
If you ever need a hand with your email strategy, you know where to find me. You have my email address... for now.
All the best,
Ben Power
The letter is now sealed and stamped. What happens next is anyone’s guess. I will, of course, report back right here with any developments.