BIC: Using Standards Rather than Leapfrogging the Product to Sustain Market Dominance

The consistency in creating and maintaining standards over the years has set BIC apart from most brands.

Sometimes you don’t need to change a winning team even a perceived flaw could be the connecting piece. Google became Google from a printing error, instead of Googol and today changing that name is not advisable.

Imagine if they had changed, they would have lost the market.

BIC’s name and its design is generic for writing pen in the minds of the market. If you can’t have the market share then go for the mindshare or the media-share. Bic has all three so why change it? No reason at all except the purpose is to kill the brand.

This brand and its design resonate in the hearts of generations of students, parents, children, administrators, and various sectors.

Being a legend means you can afford to succeed while offering the same standards beyond many normal life-cycles without using the leapfrogging lifeline.

If you think BIC’s use of standardisation for market leadership is a fluke then consider brands such as St. Luis Suger that enjoy the same benefits in another industry.

With little or no advert, change in packaging, St. Luis remains the good old brand parents and children remember with fond memories. The standard has not changed and the consumers know when standards drop.

Bic is a legend in the brand community. The name of the brand has been written down not in the books only but in the hearts of millions as they aspired or acquired for one form of education or the other.