The Embellishment Effect: The Hidden Language of Print

First Impressions in Foil

On a recent afternoon in a mock supermarket lab, a group of shoppers wandered through aisles of packaged goods. Two boxes of gourmet crackers sat side by side on the shelf, identical in brand and flavor, but with one crucial difference. One box was plain and unadorned; the other glinted under the lights with a metallic gold foil logo and a silky spot UV sheen. The result was almost mythical in its skew: 93% of participants chose the foil-embellished package over the plain one. Many picked it up, turned it in their hands, and admired its lustrous finish before dropping it into their baskets. The shoppers couldn’t have articulated why, but the shimmering box felt special. In a sense, their fingertips made the decision before their conscious minds did.

This real-world experiment, conducted by a paper company in partnership with Clemson University, confirmed what luxury brands have banked on for years: embellished print, from foil stamping to raised varnish and spot UV coating, can powerfully influence consumer perception and behavior. A touch of foil or a glossy highlight doesn’t just catch the eye; it whispers to the brain that this item is premium, important, maybe even more trustworthy or desirable than its duller neighbor. In the print industry, these effects aren’t merely cosmetic flourishes, they’re strategic tools rooted in psychology and sensory science. And they just might be the secret sauce that makes printed materials more engaging and effective in an increasingly digital world.

To understand why a bit of shine and texture can sway a shopper’s heart, we need to delve into the surprising ways touch and sight intermingle in the mind. From the feel of paper beneath our fingers to the gleam of metallic foil that triggers primordial instincts, embellished print engages consumers at a deeper level. Its power lies in how it taps into our psychology, our sensory wiring, and our emotional decision-making. As we’ll see through stories and studies, the “embellishment effect” is a blend of neuroscience and narrative, commerce and human touch.

Hardwired for Touch: The Psychology of Texture

Early in his career, psychologist John Bargh performed a now-famous experiment with an elegant twist. Participants were asked to briefly hold a cup of coffee for an interviewer. Some cups were hot, others iced. Later, those who held a warm cup described a fictional person in warmer, kinder terms, while those who held a cold cup described the person as colder and more antisocial. In another trial, people given a heavy clipboard as they evaluated job candidates rated the candidates as “more solid” and credible than those holding lighter clipboards. These quirky experiments reveal a profound truth: the sensations we feel in our hands quietly shape our judgments and emotions. Our sense of touch is, in many ways, a subliminal shortcut to the brain’s decision-making center.

Marketers call this haptic psychology, and it’s central to why embellished print has an outsized impact. When we physically touch something, a textured business card, a raised varnish on a brochure, an embossed logo on a package, we start to form a relationship with it. In fact, simply holding an object can trigger the endowment effect, the tendency to value something more highly once we’ve made physical contact. The effect kicks in quickly: one Ohio State University study found that people who held a coffee mug for just 30 seconds were willing to pay significantly more for it than those who held it for only 10 seconds. “People can become almost immediately attached to something as insignificant as a mug,” the lead researcher noted, just by touching it. In retail settings, this translates to a classic salesperson’s trick, putting the product in the customer’s hands. Touching an item induces a sense of ownership, making a person less willing to let it go.

Importantly, this tactile attachment isn’t just about holding the whole product; it can be sparked by the packaging or printed materials that come with it. Pick up a soft-touch coated brochure or a velvety matte-laminated box and you’ll often feel a subtle emotional pull. One packaging expert observed that when consumers pick up a product and love the way it feels, they form positive attitudes toward it, even if they don’t buy immediately, “the thought will remain in their minds”. In other words, a pleasing touch creates a little memory trace of desire, a seed planted for future purchases.

This haptic bias is deeply rooted in neuroscience. Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who has studied touch’s effect on the brain, calls touch “the hidden language of print”. Our tactile receptors send signals to the brain’s somatosensory cortex, and more than half of our brain’s energy is devoted to processing sensory input. We even encode metaphors based on touch: we speak of “rough days,” “warm welcomes,” and “sticky situations,” unconsciously linking physical texture to abstract concepts. It’s little wonder, then, that print enhanced with texture or heft can subliminally alter our perceptions. A smooth, coated paper exudes sophistication, while a rough, uncoated stock conveys warmth and craft. Heavier paper weight signals importance and quality (one print study noted that people perceive a message on thick paper as more valuable) and they’re more likely to keep and refer back to it. We judge the feel of a printed piece as part of its content.

Feelings on Paper: How Embellishment Engages the Brain

Physical embellishments on print don’t just make things look fancy; they engage the brain in multi-sensory stereo. When a marketing piece appeals to multiple senses at once, like sight and touch, it generates a more powerful emotional response than a one-dimensional stimulus. One print company’s research claims that adding tactile touch enhancements (like a raised UV coating) and even scent to a printed piece can increase sensory stimulation by 85%. The exact figure might be up for debate, but the underlying principle is sound: our brains light up when more than one sense is activated. A glossy photo in a travel magazine might catch your eye, but a glossy photo paired with a textured sand-like coating where the beach is will almost make you feel the sun-warmed sand between your fingers. Print can create these layered experiences in a way a flat screen simply can’t.

Neuroscience-backed studies have shown that print in general has cognitive advantages over digital, and high-quality print does even better. In a 2015 lab experiment, Eagleman and his team had subjects read a company brochure in one of three formats: on a high-quality coated paper, on a low-grade, uncoated paper, or on a digital screen. The outcome was striking. Those who read the brochure on the heavy, glossy paper understood and remembered the content best by significant margins. They formed more favorable impressions of the companies on the high-quality paper and were more likely to recommend those brands to friends. Even a week later, the people who read on premium paper recalled the brand names 3:1 over the others. The tactile cues of the paper, its weight, smooth finish, and perhaps the slight friction against the skin, rooted the content more firmly in memory. As the Sappi report on this study concluded, the “realness” of print and packaging has a powerful effect on how we comprehend and retain messages.

It turns out that material quality and finishes directly affect trust and persuasiveness as well. In the Eagleman/Sappi study above, companies presented on coated, luxurious paper stock not only stuck in memory, they also felt more credible. This aligns with industry surveys where consumers say brands that use thicker, high-grade paper come across as more trustworthy and high-value. There’s a psychological feedback loop at work: if a company invests in a beautiful, tactile print piece, our brains subconsciously infer that the company is solid and confident in its message (after all, even in the digital age, flimsy photocopies don’t scream confidence). Humans place greater trust in things they can touch and feel, a tangible printed item has weight and substance, literally, which digital media lacks. One marketing study flatly stated that print “has greater credibility thanks to its haptics”. In other words, because you can hold it in your hands, it earns a degree of trust by default.

There’s also an emotional dimension. Touch influences emotion and decision-making in ways we often don’t realize. If a velvet-smooth varnish on a direct mail piece gives you a tiny jolt of pleasure, or an embossed pattern intrigues your fingers, those sensations feed into your overall attitude toward the content or brand. We know that a vast majority of purchasing decisions, up to 95% by some estimates, are driven by subconscious emotions rather than deliberate reasoning. So anything that subtly tilts feelings in a positive direction can have a big impact. A texture on a package might encourage someone to pick it up or hold it just a little longer, which “kickstarts a connection to the product or brand that is both physical and emotional”. In that moment of contact, the product feels more real, and thus more worthy of affection or attention. The consumer may not think “I trust this more because it’s embossed,” but on an unconscious level, that’s exactly what’s happening, and it can tip the scales in whether they buy or remember the product.

Luxury at First Sight (and Touch)

Shoppers often describe “eye-catching” packages or brochures, but with embellishments it might be just as accurate to say “hand-catching.” Luxury brands are masters of this concept. Think of the last high-end perfume or tech gadget you unboxed: the logo might have been hot-stamped in gold foil, the lettering raised off the surface, the box material satisfyingly thick. These details are not coincidences; they are carefully engineered signals. Foil stamping, for instance, adds a metallic shimmer that immediately communicates exclusivity and premium quality. It draws the eye to key elements (say, a brand name or seal of authenticity) and conveys that the brand behind it is a cut above the ordinary. In packaging design, spot UV gloss can create contrast on a matte background; your eye catches that contrast and is naturally pulled to the glossy pattern or text as it reflects light. Meanwhile, a raised varnish or embossing literally begs to be touched. When consumers run their fingers over a raised logo or pattern, they’re engaging with the brand in a small tactile dialogue, perhaps thinking “this feels nice” without even realizing it.

It’s no surprise, then, that foil and texture are hallmarks of luxury marketing. One study of consumer goods found that even private-label products have started adding foil stamping and other high-visibility enhancements to appear more luxurious on the shelf. We are conditioned to associate metallic shine with value. Gold and silver have signified wealth for millennia, and some psychologists argue that our attraction to glossy surfaces is innate. In fact, researchers have hypothesized that humans love shiny, glossy looks partly due to an evolutionary association with fresh water, which reflects light. In a series of experiments, both children and adults showed a systematic preference for glossy images and objects over dull ones, supporting the idea of a deeply rooted “thing for bling” in our species. This might explain why foil stamping and high-gloss coatings effortlessly grab attention, on a subconscious level, a flash of something shiny triggers the brain’s primal reward circuits (the same way a glimpse of a glistening stream might have once signaled survival). It’s a surprising theory, but it resonates: shiny things fascinate us.

Of course, culture and context matter too. Shiny isn’t always better. In some categories, marketers deliberately avoid gloss to send a different message. A fascinating example comes from the snack food aisle. For years, potato chips and junk foods came in slick, glossy bags, which we came to intuitively associate with greasiness or indulgence. New healthy or organic snack brands flipped the script by choosing matte, textured packaging, conveying a more natural, wholesome vibe. Consumers now often perceive matte-finish packages as signaling healthier, more premium ingredients, whereas a high-gloss package might subliminally scream “artificial” or “processed”. This underscores that embellishment is a language: glossiness, texture, foil, matte each carries its own connotations. The key for brands and designers is to use the right “dialect” of that language to tell their story. Want to signal heritage and craftsmanship? Maybe use a thick, uncoated stock with letterpress embossing. To scream modern luxury? Go for sleek black paper with spot UV and a dash of holographic foil. The materials and finishes become an extension of the brand’s identity.

From Emotion to Action: The Commercial Upside

All these psychological and sensory effects would be mere curiosities if they didn’t ultimately influence behavior – but they do, often in measurable dollars-and-cents ways. The print industry is replete with case studies where a slight upgrade in print finish yielded significant boosts in consumer response. Consider the humble direct mail postcard: a staple of marketing that often gets only a split-second glance before joining the recycling pile. A Midwestern car wash company recently decided to test the power of embellishment in direct mail. They sent out 7,500 postcards to promote a new location: half were standard digital-print cards, and half had an extra treatment of raised gloss coating and shiny metallic foil on the design. Both versions carried the same offer for a free car wash. The results were eye-opening. The plain postcards achieved a solid 12.8% redemption rate – not bad at all in the world of direct mail. But the embellished postcards pulled a 16.8% response rate, a 31% higher response than the non-embellished batch. In marketing terms, that’s a huge lift. The only difference was the tactile, attention-grabbing finish on the card. The piece literally felt more intriguing, and that translated into hundreds more customers driving up to claim their car wash. As the Foil & Specialty Effects Association, which tracked this case, concluded: tactile varnish and metallics made the mailer significantly more effective, turning a good campaign into a great one.

This isn’t an isolated example. Across different industries and print mediums, embellishment has proven to increase engagement. In trade publishing, some magazines now offer foil-stamped or textured covers for special issues, knowing subscribers handle those issues more, show them around, or keep them for future reference. Business cards printed with raised UV or foil accents are more often kept and remembered by recipients, compared to standard flat ink cards (how many plain business cards have you tossed versus those unique textured ones you feel a bit guilty throwing away?). Even a small detail like a spot UV glossy pattern on a brochure can cause someone to linger an extra few seconds on a page – and those seconds matter in recall and persuasion. It’s all about inviting the reader or customer to interact with the print. When the fingers are engaged, the mind follows.

Some companies have learned the hard way what happens when you remove the sensory appeal. Clothing retailer Land’s End, for example, famously decided in 2016 to discontinue its legendary print catalog, focusing on digital communications to save costs. The outcome was a disaster: sales plunged almost immediately. The company quickly realized that many of its loyal customers had a ritual of thumbing through that catalog, dog-earing pages, feeling the weight of it. This was a tactile engagement that online browsing couldn’t replicate. Land’s End hurriedly brought back the print catalog after discovering that consumers literally needed to touch something before buying, even if the final purchase was online. The physical experience was driving a chunk of their revenue, in a way that was invisible until it was gone. It’s a cautionary tale that in the quest for digital efficiency, brands must be careful not to lose the tangible experiences that forge emotional connections.

Even tech-savvy millennials and Gen Z, often assumed to be glued to screens, respond to physical media in uniquely strong ways. Neuroscientific studies sponsored by postal agencies and print advocates have shown that direct mail and print ads trigger deeper emotional processing than their digital equivalents. One Canadian study using brain scans found that paper ads caused more activity in brain regions associated with value and desirability than digital ads, and participants showed stronger memory for print content when later tested. The mere fact that print is physical, something you can hold, gives it an edge in credibility and impact. Add embellishments to that, and the effect is magnified. An embellished print piece essentially says: “this message matters and we cared enough to make it feel special.” And consumers respond in kind, with higher attention and trust.

To summarize, here are some key benefits that embellished print has shown over plain print, from both psychological and commercial perspectives:

• Grabbing Attention: Shiny foils and gloss catch the eye instinctively, helping messages stand out in a cluttered visual environment. In packaging, a foil stamp or spot UV can be a “shopper stopper” that draws a glance or a touch when plain printing would be overlooked.

  
  

• Eliciting Emotion: Textures and finishes create pleasurable tactile experiences. These sensory “extras” generate positive emotions and subconscious associations (luxury, importance, authenticity) that can warm up consumers to the message or product.

  
  

• Building Memory: Engaging touch alongside sight leads to stronger imprinting of

  information. People remember content on high-quality or embellished print better than on ordinary paper or screens, improving recall of brand messages and offers.

  
  

• Conveying Quality and Trust: A foil logo or thick varnish isn’t just decoration, it signals that a brand is premium and confident. Consumers perceive such print as more credible and valuable, which can elevate brand perception and trustworthiness.

  
  

• Driving Action: Ultimately, tactile enhancements have been proven to boost response rates and sales. From direct mail redemption jumps of 30%+  to increased purchase preference in side-by-side tests , embellished print motivates consumers to act, whether that means redeeming a coupon, choosing one product over another, or retaining marketing materials for future use.

  
  

The Multi-Sensory Future of Print

Embellished print sits at the intersection of art and science, a place that personally I often love to explore through storytelling. It reminds us that print is not just a visual medium; it’s a multi-sensory experience. In a world increasingly dominated by flat screens and ephemeral pixels, the enduring power of print may well lie in these very sensory qualities that no digital format can deliver. What we touch, we start to feel, and what we feel, we often remember and value.

Innovative marketers are taking this insight and running with it. We now see “multi-sensory” marketing campaigns that combine printed touchables with digital components. For instance, a tech company launching a new gadget might send out a velvet-touch laminated brochure with embossed patterns, knowing that potential buyers who handle it will subconsciously associate that tactile richness with the product’s quality. Print embellishments are also being paired with emerging technology: imagine scanning a foil-stamped image with a smartphone to trigger an augmented reality animation. Now two senses (touch and sight) become three (adding interactivity and maybe sound). The possibilities to engage consumers’ senses are expanding, but the core principle is ancient and intuitive: human beings respond to things that stimulate our sense of touch. As one sensory marketing adage puts it, “you can’t touch something without being touched.” When a brand creates a touchable experience, it is, in effect, touching the customer’s emotions.

In the print industry, this has opened up a new golden age of craftsmanship. Foil & specialty effect associations report increasing interest in techniques once seen as niche – from scented inks (which engage smell along with touch and sight) to textured UV coatings that simulate wood grain or leather. In fact, a recent survey of print buyers and brand managers ranked special tactile coatings and textures among the top value-adding print techniques, just behind scented inks, for their ability to boost profitability and consumer engagement. The more senses a printed piece can appeal to, the more human and engaging it becomes. It’s telling that even tech companies, who rely on digital, use print catalogs and mailers to cut through digital fatigue, often dressing them up with luxurious finishes to ensure they aren’t ignored.

In a final analysis, embellished print works so well not because of the novelty of glitter or gloss, but because it satisfies some of our deepest sensory and psychological cravings. We crave experiences we can feel. We are drawn to things that sparkle. We subconsciously equate texture with significance, and we build trust through tangible signals. The foil stamping, raised varnish, and spot UV aren’t just production tricks, they’re storytelling tools. They narrate a silent story to the consumer: this matters, it’s special, hold onto it.

If there’s a lesson here, it might be this: In a time when so much communication is frictionless, literally glassy and smooth on a screen, a little bit of friction can be a good thing. The slight resistance of a raised ink under your thumb, the cool smoothness of a coated foil logo, the contrast of matte and gloss catching your eye; these small frictions ground us in the physical world and make an impression last. For the print industry and marketers aiming to engage a jaded audience, the takeaway is clear. Sometimes, the difference between a message that fades and one that sticks is as simple as a touch of varnish or a glint of gold, a tangible reminder that what’s in your hand has weight, substance, and a spark of human connection.

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