We rely on our senses to navigate everyday life. Sensory intelligence is your ability to accurately notice, interpret, and respond to information coming through your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Shaping how we view and interpret the world, strong sensory intelligence boosts memory, learning, creativity, mental and physical well-being, and decision-making. That’s why it’s no surprise that the five senses play an essential role when it comes to the shopping experience. Seeing as 67% of shoppers walk through store doors seeking inspiration rather than looking for specific items, it becomes increasingly clear that shopping is about so much more than just buying things. 

“Physical retail’s greatest strength is its ability to engage all five senses in ways online shopping simply can’t,” Jaime Bettencourt, SVP of Global Account Management and Marketing at Mood Media, told Fast Company. 

But to engage all five senses, brands need to think strategically. After all, no customer wants to be overwhelmed by blaring music or overpowering smells. But done tastefully, brands can build relationships with customers that last a lifetime. Here is a look at three brands that are doing it right.

Beauty is on the Forefront of Sensory Intelligence

When it comes to breaking barriers, the beauty industry is at the forefront of sensory intelligence, interweaving its products with high-tech technologies, in-store events, and advanced personalization to turn a shopping experience into retailtainment. Multi-sensory marketing strategies can increase brand recall by up to 70%, as compared to traditional single-sensory advertising, according to a white paper from the beauty insight platform BEAUTYSTREAMS.

“The brick-and-mortar spaces fuse a sensory experience with creative concepts that are more entertaining and immersive than ever, allowing customers to interact with the brand and products in new, experimental ways,” says Eleanora Mazzilli of BEAUTYSTREAMS.

This past summer, Monclos, a South Korean house beauty and lifestyle brand, unveiled a brand experience space in Seoul that offers bespoke fragrance and hand cream customization, TrendHunter shared. Visitors choose scents and imprint their initials or phrases on keychain products, transforming their purchases into personalized experiences they’ll have forever. Their experience and their sense of smell are subsequently interwoven forever. 

Nordstrom’s Holiday Gifting Sensory Funhouse

Differentiating yourself during the holiday shopping onslaught is a challenge for many major brands, and Nordstrom managed to do so this past holiday season by launching “Oh, What Funhouse!”, a multi-sensory journey through gifting.

The activations offered different gifting options based on one of the five senses. On the first floor, customers visited “Sound: Listen to Your Instinct,” which featured a floating piano that filled the atrium with bright melodies. On the second floor, they found “Scent: Follow Your Nose,” where a sculptural nose invites guests to press a button and receive a fortune-cookie-style receipt with gifting clues, according to AM New York. Their journey continued on the third floor with “Sight: Make an Impression,” a kaleidoscopic maze of funhouse mirrors. The fourth-floor activation, “Touch: Know What Feels Right,” showcased two giant hands with tactile moments, including digital palm readings. The experience concluded with the fifth-floor activation, “Taste: Match Their Taste,” with gumball machines dispensing unique flavors. 

Designed to “awaken the senses,” the light-hearted journey created a fully personalized experience while still allowing shoppers to shop ‘til they dropped and splurge on their loved ones for the holiday season. 

Turning Eyewear into an Art Gallery

Gentle Monster, a South Korean eyewear company, is committed to providing immersive experiences, including using concept stores as discovery tools. Their greatest gift is relying on the sense of sight to sell eyewear. While it sounds simple, the plan is actually brilliant. The brand’s retail outlets feature art exhibitions and eye-catching, highly Instagrammable installations that make visitors feel as if they’re stepping into an art gallery, Forbes explains. Gentle Monster employs more spatial designers than product designers, showing their commitment to creating a visually stunning space. Through immersion, they possess the ability to deepen customers’ relationships.

Gentle Monster’s tactics have allowed the company to go toe-to-toe with Warby Parker. While Warby Parker still leads in overall web searches, Gentle Monster increasingly dominates on image and YouTube searches, which is a testament to its superior visual and animated appeal among global audiences, according to a Harvard Business Review study.

Gentle Monster’s tactics are working: It took seven years for Warby Parker to attain an estimated $250 million in revenue. Within the same amount of time, Gentle Monster’s revenue almost reached twice this amount.

Sensory intelligence influences how you think, feel, connect, create, and perform, and that all ties into how we shop. As physical retail will still drive around 72% of total U.S. retail sales by 2028, according to Forrester, brands need to consider how they will keep customers in their stores. Gen Z and Gen Alpha expect immersive, tech-enabled retail, and brands that stay static risk losing relevance, experts say. Since they’re two populations that value shopping in-store, it’s particularly important to value their choices.

Monclos, Nordstrom, and Gentle Monster understand that to build strong brand loyalty, they need to tap into the five senses. That means going beyond a product-first environment and connecting with the customer on a deeper level. There’s a reason we recall moments from throughout our lives through smell and taste, and if brands want their customers to do the same, it’s time to take their methodologies a step further.