We were all pretty excited with the recent release of Adobe’s CS5 software suite. The prospect of a software upgrade is always kind of fun, and there are some pretty cool new features in the mix. The most interesting aspect of the launch, however has nothing to do with their software. According to ClickZ, Adobe ran an all-digital campaign to announce, promote and launch CS5.

That’s right. No billboards. No print. No TV. No radio. They used their website, their team of product evangelists, Twitter, Facebook, and plenty of other social media outlets. It also surely helps that, well… they’re Adobe. Not quite Apple in the buzz department, but they are up there. Knowing that they have made the decision to go all-digital in their software marketing and promotions is indeed interesting. Perhaps a good indicator of where things are headed? I think so.

Here’s another interesting tidbit: They did this with CS4 as well. So the last two releases of their flagship software suite have been all-digital campaigns. And they have been very successful.

The newsworthiness of this is that Adobe is a big company. They could spend the money on a fully integrated campaign to promote their newest software launch if they wanted to. Instead, they go digital. They’re likely focusing on hitting their core customer in the most direct and efficient manner possible. The designer, publisher, programmer, editor, and general creative user base that buys their product and uses it every day. Heck – I just cropped the above image out of a screenshot using Photoshop. It’s my go-to tool for image editing. So why try to hit up creatives on any other channel?

How soon will other companies fully embrace this strategy? How many have the guts to make the jump to all-digital marketing? More and more businesses are moving budgets to digital methods over traditional methods every day. The ability to target and track your core customers and measure your ROI makes it an increasingly smart move.

Is Adobe risking anything by going all-digital, or are they just showing us what the future is going to be like?