Success Story

Our work for Staples illustrates how BIG can stage innovative programs to address different goals and budgets.

Staples Idea Hunt

BIG and Staples identified an opportunity for Staples to create private-label products that offered more innovative features and benefits than commodity goods. To keep inventors focused, the Hunt scope was narrowed to filing and note-taking products. BIG helped Staples articulate the guidelines, wrote the Hunt spec, and then publicized it to our network (via mail, email, and web). At the conclusion of our 6-week Hunt, we had approximately 300 ideas.
 

 
The ideas were then categorized, prioritized, and presented to Staples. Beyond organizing the inventions and ranking them, BIG also identified common themes.
 

 
After several evaluation rounds, Staples focused on four innovative concepts. With the guidance of BIG, the inventors prepped more detailed presentations, including prototypes and/or product visuals, as well as positioning and packaging concepts.

The first product from that Idea Hunt was a line of distinctive file folders.
 

 
The Idea Hunt also helped spur Staples to undertake an even bigger innovation initiative: The Staples Invention Quest.

Staples Invention Quest

In 2003, Staples inaugurated a nationwide consumer contest for the best new concepts in office supply products. The main goals of contest were to discover innovative products to fuel Staples' private-label brands, to generate positive PR, and to drive traffic to Staples' retail sites.

Working with both product development and marketing specialists at Staples, Big Idea proposed, outlined, managed, and helped judge the event. Culling through nearly 8500 submissions, BIG identified the best for invitations to the Semi-Finals, which we organized and ran. The process culminated in a best-of-the-best competition among 12 Finalists in New York City. The event, staged at the New York NASDAQ, generated national media coverage, including inventor appearances on Regis and Kelly. The grand prize of $25,000 was awarded to the WordLock, an innovative lock that uses letters (and words) instead of numbers.

Contact us at info@bigideagroup.net to discuss how BIG can design an innovation program to meet your needs.

Four of the Invention Quest products produced by Staples:


WordLock (TM)


Rubber Bandits (TM)


TackDots (TM)


Handy Strap Stapler (TM)