I share an e-mail account with my partner and children, and often find that I have mysteriously been added to the subscription list for e-mail announcements from companies I’ve never knowingly done business with. A large part of my time seems to be taken up with unsubscribing myself from these companies, some of which make it really hard for you to do so. Mostly, however, these are dull affairs: the very last line of the e-mail includes an ‘unsubscribe’ hyperlink in an impossibly small font size; you press on it, type in your e-mail address and that’s it, over. But, when I unsubscribed myself from Boden’s e-newsletters, a different message came up, one that almost made me want to re-subscribe myself, and which certainly brought a smile to my face. This is what I read:

Ah. The tawdry, wretched anguish of the breakup. It doesn’t have to be this way, we’d like to stay in touch, and give you tokens of our affection, discounts and previews. But, if you’re determined to leave, then please fill your email address in below and our heartbreak will be complete. 
Please bear with us while we remove you from the database; it may take up to 21 days to complete the process. Once complete, no further communication from us will be sent to this email address. Not even flowers. Required fields are marked with an asterisk ( )

It’s witty. It’s in keeping with their image or product. And it’s a neat way of making even the most mundane of activities (and an essentially negative one) memorable. As I say, it was almost, but not quite, enough to make me re-subscribe. It was certainly enough, however, to make me feel much better about the company than I had done five minutes before. Achieving that effect in under 100 words is pretty good.