To Click or Not to Click

From: Victoria's Secret
Subject Line: This Just In - New Savings on 40+ Bra Top Dresses. Plus, Free Shipping. Details Inside.
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I must be getting older, because I find reading emails getting harder and harder. The use of light grey font to "de-prioritize" content you don't really want to call attention to always makes me wonder what is being hidden from me. Seldom does this inspire action; this treatment is an engagement preventer. Now, I understand wanting the main offer and body of the message to be where the eye is drawn, but I question whether it really makes sense to hide links with this treatment. Let's look at all the links with this treatment in this recent VS email:

View on mobile or web browser Catalogue Quick Order Forward to a Friend Find a Store Angel Credit Card Order Status 1-800 Phone Number Facebook Social Share Unsubscribe (shame shame shame)

I would think most marketers would want readers to take action on links like these, not prevent action. To be fair, they aren't really hidden, they are just hard to see. By utilizing the light grey fonts on all the links listed above, what VS is telling me is, "please don't click these." I wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to take them out all together rather than make them hard to find. The one I really have the problem with is obvious, you should never make the unsubscribe link hard to find, or your readers might instead use the dreaded "report as spam" button.