By Richard Romano, managing editor, WhatTheyThink

The third Taktiful/WhatTheyThink Embellishment Study has just been released, and this year’s report confirms quantitatively what we have been hearing anecdotally for the past year: Demand for print embellishments is on the rise.

The Story So Far

In 2023, when we conducted our first embellishment study (which was limited to the fifth-color option on digital presses), embellishments still were viewed as novel by much of the market.

2024 was a major “coming out party” for what could be considered “the embellishment drupa” as most of an entire hall at Messe Düsseldorf was devoted to embellishment equipment vendors. 

By 2025, when we released the second embellishment study (which was expanded to include the full gamut of digital ink and toner embellishment technologies, such as those offered by Scodix, MGI, Konica Minolta, etc.), the printing industry at large had a clearer understanding of the profitability and customer impact of embellishments. Adoption has been growing, but barriers – largely in the design and prepress processes, but also in sales – still remained for full-scale implementation.

Now, in 2026, we are seeing the culmination of three to four years of significant and rapid evolution. This period has marked a shift from exploratory utilization to a more embedded, profit-driven integration of digital embellishments across a broadening range of applications, especially packaging. We also are seeing – anecdotally at this stage – an increased emphasis of embellishments in an unexpected area: Wide-format printing.

Things We Said Today

The integration of digital embellishment capabilities has transformed the potential of print to be not only functional but sensorially engaging. Initially viewed as premium add-ons, digital embellishments increasingly are recognized as strategic tools for differentiation, value creation and enhanced ROI in marketing applications. Other studies confirm not only the growing popularity of embellishments, but their effectiveness in achieving the specific goals of a print application. For example, last year Sappi, in conjunction with Clemson University, released “The Touch Advantage,” a study that looked at how “touch” – that is, tactile effects added via embellishments – affects purchasing decisions and perceptions in the paper and packaging industry.

Now, the third Taktiful/WhatTheyThink Embellishment Study confirms many of these trends. Indeed, the most substantial finding in this year’s survey of owners of digital ink and toner embellishment technologies is that two-thirds (66%) of the respondents said they have seen more demand for digital embellishments in the past year, up from the 29% who said this in last year’s survey. Meanwhile, 18% said demand has remained about the same (down from 56% last year), and only 5% have seen less demand for embellishments, down from 9% last year.

A caveat on interpreting this data: The respondents to the survey comprise what can be called a “convenience sample” – one that draws from a defined and relevant professional population, but not a randomly selected cross-section of the printing industry as a whole. As a result, classical statistical inference, which allows precise margins of error to be calculated and projections made to a defined universe, requires a “probability sample.” This was not one. Thus, percentages cited in and from this survey should be understood as estimates of opinion and behavior within the WhatTheyThink and Taktiful PSP communities  – who comprised the pool that responded to the survey – not Census-calibrated statistics for the US printing industry. At the same time, the study only surveyed owners of embellishment capabilities (plus digital press owners who use the fifth-color option for embellishment purposes), and that installed base remains low, at least for now.

Bearing that in mind, other key findings include:

• 41% of respondents cited “profit generation” as their primary reason for investing in digital embellishment capabilities, down from 54% last year. “Application-specific demand” was selected by 22% of respondents, up from 15% last year.
• 89% of respondents use embellishments at least “sometimes,” 28% “usually” and 18% “always.” 
• 66% of respondents said they have seen more demand for digital embellishments in the past year – up from the 29% who said this in 2025.
• In 2026, 75% of respondents are satisfied (34% very satisfied) with the profits they make off digital embellishment jobs, while 66% are satisfied (13% very satisfied) with the sales of these jobs. These satisfaction figures are improved from 2025: 65% had been satisfied with profits and 37% had been satisfied with sales. 35% said that digital embellishment jobs were “always” more profitable than regular CMYK jobs, while 44% said they “usually” are.

As we found in the previous two studies, print businesses primarily added embellishment capabilities with the intent to have it be a profit center, with customer demand also being a factor. That “application-specific” demand is higher this time around suggests a more strategic deployment of embellishments.

As ever, users of embellishment capabilities are generally satisfied with the profitability of the jobs they are producing, but they continue to be less satisfied with sales, specifically calling out the sales staff as the weak link; although, this appears to be less of an issue than it was when we started conducting these surveys. Sales and marketing efforts have been paying off, and further efforts in these areas are needed to make these jobs even more profitable. We often have pointed out that one of the most effective ways of marketing these capabilities is to create a branded offering around them – case studies have found that this was a successful route for companies offering embellishments of all kinds – and we were happy to see that many of our respondents have been doing this.

We also continued to find that companies that have invested in these technologies overwhelmingly are bullish about the future of embellishments and indicate that they are ready and willing to increase capacity. 

This is the third study on this topic, the first having been conducted in 2023 (which looked solely at specialty inks and toners) and the second in 2025 (which looked at all digital embellishments). Read more and purchase the study at https://store.whattheythink.com.