Businesses usually focus on creating products or services that are indispensable to consumers. But sometimes it can also be a benefit to create fun and memorable products. It’s a lesson Chicago restaurant Alinea has effectively learned with its unique dessert — edible helium balloons.
The restaurant makes this interesting dessert using inverted sugar and natural fruit essences, then fills it using a helium tank. Customers can then suck out the helium and enjoy talking like Mickey Mouse for a few moments while consuming the sweet substance surrounding it.
Fun Products Draw Customers and Create Experiences
This type of product creates instant joy for consumers. It’s something that makes dining at the restaurant more of an experience than a simple meal. And it also makes the restaurant more buzzworthy. Since customers have so much fun trying the dessert, they’re likely to tell their friends about it or post on social media. And if you heard about a restaurant down the street serving edible helium balloons, wouldn’t you rush to check it out?
So this business provides a great demonstration for other small businesses of the importance of creating fun products. If you can come up with something that’s relatively easy to create — like filling a sugar mixture with helium — and is capable of providing a really fun and different experience for your customers, it’s worth trying out.
Image: Alinea
This article, “Edible Balloons Should Inspire You to Make Your Product Fun” was first published on Small Business Trends