Not to sound like every surly bro archetype in any rom com you’ve ever watched but... Valentine’s Day is a marketing department’s dream. Aside from Christmas, V-day is up there as one of the most heavily marketed holidays we have.
In the lead-up to couples’ Instagram posts showcasing their lavish gestures, inboxes receive an unrelenting onslaught of emails from restaurants and brands encouraging you to ‘say it with love’ by gifting products from their site.
But now Etsy has offered their customers a chance to opt out of the chaos before it even starts for a very valid reason: ‘We understand that Valentine’s Day can be a tough time,’ they wrote to their subscribers. ‘If you prefer not to receive Valentine’s Day emails from us, you can opt out by clicking below.’
This is an amazing marketing move because break-ups can be hard to put into the back of your mind at the best of times. The last thing anyone who is grieving the end of a relationship needs is a constant, pinging-in-your-pocket reminder that the most romantic day of the year is coming up soon.
The last thing anyone who is grieving the end of a relationship needs is a constant, pinging-in-your-pocket reminder that the most romantic day of the year is coming up soon.
‘Thank you Etsy for giving me the opportunity to opt out of Valentine’s Day emails. Single and turning 60, I appreciate not having the day thrown in my face,’ wrote one Twitter user.
‘I feel so seen, but also grateful!’ added another.
Additionally, over the last two years since the pandemic began, our lives have been characterised by loss. Email prompts to celebrate fiancés, friends, or family members on a specific day could also serve as a painful reminder to the bereaved.
It was for this reason that the flower delivery service Bloom&Wild wrote to their customers and offered them to opt out of Mother’s Day flower reminders in 2019. The thoughtfulness then garnered such a passionate public response that it was even mentioned in Parliament.
‘If other companies were to follow suit, the dread — and I do mean dread — around this day might be mitigated for many people,’ said MP for Boston and Skegness Mark Warman, whose mother died when he was just 27 years old.
And, thankfully, there does appear to be a slow and steady move towards ‘thoughtful marketing’. Ahead of Father’s Day last year, brands including Tesco, Ocado, Boots, and Waterstones also followed in Bloom& Wild’s footsteps to give consumers a chance to avoid unwanted reminders.
To offer those in pain an opportunity to safeguard against triggering scenarios before they occur is a decent thing to do, because it lessens the mental strain of mourners to remember to do it for themselves.
Emails are undeniably invasive. They arrive in the middle of the night, pile up in their thousands and appear from senders you’ve never even heard of before. While post can be binned and phone calls limited to the waking hours, digital communication represents a constant bombardment from every angle.
Aside from anything else, opt-out emails like Etsy's are a positive step forward because they allows company’s messages to become more targeted. Hopefully one day they'll be commonplace enough that those who don’t celebrate Christian festivals can avoid being e-harassed about Christmas or Easter, too.
READ MORE: 'I've Always Dismissed Valentine's Day - This Year I Feel Insulted By It'
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