Why we savour sensory print: Erwin Busselot, Director Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
09 June 2025: By Erwin Busselot, Director Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe.
“No one ever cherished a PDF!” states British print professional and graphic designer Stuart Nimmo in a recent article for Print Power, the European initiative to promote print media advertising.
He’s right. When was the last time you saved and shared an email because it made such an impression or kept some form of online communication as a keepsake?
However, I am sure you can think of many examples where you have saved or shared print in one form or another.
Print converts a message into a physical experience that can be cherished.
It creates memorable, emotional connections in a world dominated overwhelmingly by fleeting, digital imagery.
Print engages our senses beyond visual, activating touch and, at times, even smell.
Analogue printing achieved this with a wide selection of textured paper stocks and the exploration of techniques like embossing and thermography. Different combinations helped produce unique, crafted pieces that captured attention and drove engagement.
Initially, in the rush towards digital, this creativity was lost, with flatter designs prevailing.
Now a growing number of imaginative Print Service Providers (PSPs) are focusing on developing attractive, expertly crafted, inspiring, value added, print that demands attention.
They are producing well executed, colour rich, highly personalised print with textured grades, a variety of toner choices, and data driven customisation.
Their careful matching of visually stimulating images, tactile effects, and hyper relevant, timely messages, engages multiple senses and is more likely to evoke a response.
A recent study by the Foil & Specialty Effects Association (FSEA) found embellished promotional postcards offering a free car wash achieved a response rate of 16.8%, equalling a 31.25% improvement over the response rate of a non-embellished postcard. This compares to the average response rate for business mail of 11% according to JICMail’s Q4 2024 figures.
Creating a superior, value added experience with embellishments enables PSPs to generate healthier margins – especially with print buyers willing to pay premiums ranging from 24% to 89% for special effects over standard CMYK only printing.
As such, PSPs and print buyers are increasingly recognising the value of being more creative as Keypoint Intelligence’s 2024 Color Embellishments survey confirms. It found 30% of respondents were in the market to purchase a printer or press that can produce embellishments inline in the coming year.
Meeting that interest are next generation technology innovations such as the digital sheetfed RICOH Pro™ C7500 with its fifth colour capabilities that can run white, neon yellow, neon pink, gold, silver, and invisible red toners. Clear toner can also be employed to elevate print with unique patterns for luxury effects.
Supporting the production of predictable and reproducible metallic embellishments is Color-Logic software while Touch7’s Extended Gamut System increases the colour gamut of Ricoh’s solutions.
Ricoh has also established strategic partnerships with Scodix and Duplo. Scodix’s portfolio of embellishment technology and Duplo’s DuSense range of solutions support high level customisation with an extensive choice of effects.
They deliver highly differentiated, premium products, that transform print into a creative powerhouse generating emotional and memorable connections savoured long after their electronic counterparts.
https://www.ricoh-europe.com/
