The Premium Problem: Kevin Abergel Challenges Printers to Stop Selling Print That “Simply Exists”

https://youtu.be/TDykeL5-2hc

In a keynote built around one uncomfortable question, Kevin Abergel asked printers to consider how many jobs they had lost in the past year because another company came in cheaper. Then he pushed the question further: How many of those competitors were probably making little or no money on the work?

That familiar race to the bottom formed the starting point for “The Premium Problem,” a presentation Abergel first delivered in Denver and later shared with the Taktisphere community during a live virtual session. His argument was blunt. The print industry does not merely have a pricing problem. It has a product problem.

“When the customer sees your product as the same product as everybody else, the only thing left to compare is the number at the bottom of the quote,” Abergel said. Competing harder on an identical product, he argued, does not create a healthier business. It only rewards the company willing to suffer longer.

The alternative is differentiation that customers can see, touch and understand. Abergel positioned digital embellishment, including dimensional varnish, foil and fifth- and sixth-color effects, not as decorative extras or machine capabilities, but as tools for creating better business outcomes. In his framing, embellishment is not simply shine added to a sheet. It is a “margin engine” that can move a sales conversation away from cost and toward attention, response, perceived quality and brand value.

The market, he said, is already moving in that direction. Commodity print volumes remain under pressure, while the value of effective print is rising. Marketers are producing fewer routine pieces, but expecting those pieces to work harder. Packaging must win on the shelf. Direct mail must survive the first few seconds of sorting. Sales collateral must establish credibility before a conversation begins.

“Your customers didn’t stop believing in print,” Abergel said. “They stopped believing in cheap print that doesn’t move the needle.”

He supported the case with early findings from Taktiful’s latest Digital Embellishment Study. According to figures presented during the keynote, the share of respondents reporting increased demand for digitally embellished print rose from 29% in 2025 to 61% in 2026. Only 21% said competitors in their market were offering embellishment, suggesting a significant window for differentiation.

Seventy-five percent said embellished work was more profitable than standard CMYK, while 25% said they were not tracking it. None said embellished work was never more profitable. Meanwhile, 91% expressed optimism about the category’s future.

The opportunity, however, is being constrained by the industry’s own habits. Abergel identified five common mistakes: hiding premium capabilities, explaining them in technical language, underpricing them, waiting for customers to ask and attempting to sell tactile effects through flat PDFs or ordinary email attachments.

Customers rarely care about micron heights, consumable chemistry or the internal configuration of a press, he said. They care whether a package is picked up, whether a mailer is opened and whether a sales kit makes a company appear more credible.

“Nobody buys toner. Nobody buys varnish,” Abergel said. “They are buying attention. They are buying touch. They are buying response.”

That distinction matters because touch influences perception before a buyer fully processes the message. Abergel described print as one of the few marketing channels capable of creating a physical reaction before a word is read. Weight, texture, softness, foil and raised varnish can communicate quality and trust almost immediately. Luxury brands have understood this for years, using heavier packaging and deliberate materials to turn opening a product into an experience.

For local printers, the lesson is not to wait for premium work to appear from some undiscovered market. Abergel recommended reviewing the previous 90 days of production and identifying every job intended to impress, persuade or be remembered.

Invitations, menus, packaging, presentation covers, direct mail, real estate materials, donor kits and product launches all belong in what he called the “premium pipeline.” The demand may already be inside the shop, hidden in jobs that ran flat because nobody showed the customer a better option.

Pricing those options requires a different mindset. Abergel cautioned against treating a differentiated capability as though it were another commodity click charge. Production costs still matter internally because they establish the floor, but they should not define the customer-facing value. The more relevant questions are what the campaign is worth, what one additional response could generate and what the buyer’s alternative would cost.

He illustrated the point with a direct-mail example. If a customer is promoting a $500 service, the value of one additional customer can quickly exceed the incremental cost of adding an embellishment effect. The printer should not promise unsupported performance, he said, but should help the buyer calculate the economics.

In that model, the customer’s potential return establishes the ceiling, production cost establishes the floor and the profitable opportunity sits between them.

Abergel also urged printers to stop issuing quotes with a single number. For eligible jobs, he recommended a good-better-best structure. “Good” delivers what the customer requested, “better” introduces one strategically placed premium effect and “best” demonstrates the fully elevated version.

The approach does more than anchor pricing. It makes premium thinking part of the quoting process and allows the quote itself to become a salesperson.

The physical sample remains essential. A PDF cannot reproduce shine, and a JPEG cannot communicate texture. Abergel advised sales teams to put strong samples into a customer’s hands before discussing price, then allow the print to do much of the selling. Interactive previsualization can support that experience when an in-person sample is not possible, but it should not replace the power of touch.

The keynote closed with a warning and an opportunity. The differentiation window will not remain open forever, but many competitors will continue quoting flat CMYK, talking about equipment and waiting for buyers to request capabilities they have never seen.

Printers do not need to be perfect to take advantage of the gap, Abergel said. They need to be visible, proactive and willing to charge for the value they create.

“We’re not selling consumables,” he concluded. “You’re selling attention. You’re selling touch. You’re selling response. You’re selling outcomes.”