Special effects and finishes have long been used on printed material to express value. Whether it’s retail packaging, displays, gift cards, book jackets, greeting cards, direct mail or otherwise.
Reflective and/or metallic special effects in particular, especially when combined with textured printing, are very effective at catching light in a way that draws a consumer’s eye and curiosity to your retail packaging.
Reflective Printing Gets Attention
Don’t just take our word for it: a study conducted by the Clemson University’s Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design & Graphics found that foil stamped packaging attracts attention faster—by roughly 1.5 seconds than non-reflective packaging. It also retains that visual contact a bit longer.
Those few seconds create an advantage—the opportunity to start developing a bond with your target audience. Through proper design, that advantage can be leveraged into higher response rates, better brand engagement, and the potential for higher sales conversions.
Texture Printing & Endowment Effect
When a reflective finish is also textured, it creates a second opportunity to deepen the engagement. With over 2,000 sensory receptors in our fingertips, embossing can trigger an emotional interaction, if the material is pleasant to the touch. This interaction is called the Endowment Effect.
The Endowment Effect is a behavioral bias—an innate human impulse—that causes us to value things that seem as though they are ours, more highly. Once that emotional attachment is made—and it can begin to take hold once we touch something—it’s harder to put that object down and walk away, especially if the design is unique.
Personalization
Today, one of the most unique designs that a company can use is personalization. With special effects screen printing already attracting attention faster, and textured printing creating a pleasant tactile connection, taking the intensity one step further through customization can really boost your packaging’s effectiveness. For instance, adding the name of the recipient to a gift box or direct mailer using metallic textured printing can make a design truly distinctive and not only much harder to overlook, it deepens the personal connection to it.
Make Your Packaging Irresistible
To add an irresistible shimmer to your packaging, displays, direct mail, or any other printed material, talk to us. We explore reflective, metallic, textured, and even scented printing to draw your target markets directly to your products.
Contact us to learn more about reflective, mirrored and textured special effects screen printing
