What do you do when you’ve made one type of product since you got started thirty years ago, and every possible iteration of that product has been explored? You think about your company in a much broader sense than you ever have before.

That’s what one executive for BIC did in the 1970’s when the low-cost pen market had reached a saturation point. And all he did was ask a simple question: What if we made disposable lighters? That one question changed the entire positioning of the brand from that point forward – from a seller of disposable pens to a seller of disposable items. The lighter, and soon after the disposable shaver, quickly took off, propelling the BIC brand into a cultural phenomenon greater than its executives ever thought it could be.