be more
content
We're Q
to your
James Bond
Not your supporting sidekick.
Your strategic creative partner.
Behind every hero there's a trusted ally with both the specialist skills that enhance the hero's ability and the loyalty that provides resilience against adversity. Think Q and James Bond. Hermione and Harry Potter. Alfred and Batman. Cinna and Katniss Everdene.
Mission possible. Breakthroughs achieved.
If we brand-build for your business, it's like equipping your car with hidden rocket thrusters and invisible shields, plus the ability to adapt into a submarine when required. If we develop a staff or stakeholder engagement initiative or marketing campaign, it's like the latest exploding pen - skilfully crafted, clear, precise, and guaranteed to make the big impression you want to deliver. Keep us on hand as your outsourced team and we're like your everyday bulletproof umbrella - stylish, dependable, and surprisingly good in a storm. The bmc blueprint is designed not just to achieve business breakthroughs but also to make your life happier and easier.
"The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller."
STEVE JOBS
We’re a team whose passion is to use creativity strategically to support good people and good causes. Are we be more content or be more content? We're both!
We met each other through working at agencies and leading company brand and creative teams, becoming longstanding colleagues.
We’re strategists who turn robust analysis into confident insight for bold business decisions and smart investments. We’re design-thinkers who empower you to see your business differently: your problems, purpose, people, potential. We’re storytellers who use emotion to move what your staff, stakeholders, clients and customers think, feel and do.
Our complementary skill sets and instinctive understanding mean we work closely together with low drama, high trust (and sense of humour - always) to achieve game-changing results. It doesn't get better than that.
Before be more content launched at the end of 2024, four of us were senior managers at what was then Europe's largest infrastructure project, HS2. It was a unique opportunity and incredible idea at the time - we partnered experts and innovators both inside and outside the organisation in striving to achieve a shared vision for transport-led regeneration up and down the UK.
Through the very tough gig of leading the HS2 Brand and Creative team, we know better than most the challenges of trying to engage and align diverse stakeholders and audiences in extreme controversy, ambiguity and change. We also became experienced at providing value for money for creativity under intense financial scrutiny (from both the public through the Freedom of Information Act and from sign-off as high up as the Government Cabinet Office).
Our ability to achieve business and communication goals in such complex, high profile situations - as well as for our own small companies - is what makes us an excellent strategic creative partner. We can achieve breakthroughs via our bmc blueprint whether you're founder or leader of a global franchise, a national start-up, or a local micro-business.
Design by Vic El Bast and Dan Zalepa while at HS2.
Hornby turned it into a model (below).
be more content is boutique by design.
We commit to only a few partnerships at a time, so we can guarantee you our personal attention, flexibility and agility. That's life made easier and happier, right there.
VIC EL BAST
STRATEGY
DIRECTOR
Education: English at Oxford Uni.
By trade: conceptual copywriter.
By evolution: brand and creative director, senior strategic leader.
Experience: a career of over 30 years spanning publishing (she's written far too much - incl. an Amazon bestseller), multimedia storytelling and content marketing, agency campaigns and corporate brand communications and experiences.
Personal: Lives with her husband and son in Birmingham, where she's a governor of BOA Stage and Screen Academy. Dogwalks and swims for thinking time. Is often found doing the planning and creative direction for people's weddings, even when they don't want it (and in some cases aren't getting married).
Dream: to save the NHS millions by improving brand architecture and patient communication at a local level.
DREW NIXON
OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
Education: American football and partying with a bit of Maths and Statistics at Bath Uni.
By trade: analyst and social media manager.
By evolution: content strategist, data visualiser, creative producer.
Experience: more than 15 years of turning business data into strategic brand narratives, multichannel B2B campaigns and live, virtual and hybrid experiences. We've noticed that Drew always has his best strategic creative ideas between 4pm and 5pm - it's his business breakthrough golden hour.
Personal: lives with his wife and two children in the countryside around Wolverhampton.
Dream: for be more content to be strategic creative partner to Patek Philippe. (And for both of his kids to be illness-free, at the same time, for more than 48 hours.)
DEB ASHINGTON
DIGITAL
CONSULTANT
Education: Visual Communication at Newman Uni, Birmingham.
By trade: digital designer.
By evolution: UX strategist and senior stakeholder manager.
Experience: a career of over 30 years spanning digital platforms, multichannel B2C campaigns and results-driven communications. Deb ran the digital experience team at the largest local authority outside London for over a decade.
Personal: Deb and her whole family are entrepreneurs with their own businesses. She lives with her husband in a canalside cottage in Droitwich. Deb gives Kirstie Allsopp a run for her money when it comes to crafts but also loves adventures like cycling round Cambodia and horse riding up Vesuvius.
Dream: to explore the world with her husband on his Harley Davidson.
LEE CRUTCHLEY
DESIGN
CONSULTANT
Education: Visual Communication and Typography at Leeds Uni.
By trade: graphic and motion designer, illustrator.
By evolution: art director and author.
Experience: over 20 years of visual storytelling for corporates, publishers and commercial clients e.g. magazines and rock bands. Lee can brand a barristers' chambers with one hand while making a street art movie with the other. He's written six books which have sold over half a million copies, in 20 languages.
Personal: Lee is easy-going, very tall, and lives with his partner, a photographer, in Berlin. He makes regular trips to the UK to dogsit and see his mum (not in that order, of course).
Dream: for Nick Cave to say that everyone should read Lee's books . . . No, wait - that actually happened . . .
SASSY HAILEY
MARCOMMS CONSULTANT
Education: Marketing with French and German at Bristol Uni.
By trade: creative marketer and business owner.
By evolution: communications and campaign director.
Experience: more than 25 years of crafting government communications and marketing global brands in sectors including healthcare, finance and automotive. (Remember the 'It's a Mini Adventure' campaign?)
Personal: lives in Devon by the sea and is volunteer lifeboat crew for the RNLI, which is where she met her partner. Sassy's passionate about sustainability and was qualified as a BREEAM assessor.
Dream: to run Sassy's Beach Shack in Salcombe in the summer and Sassy's Ski Chalet in Aspen in the winter.
Some lovely be more content numbers
03 awards
. . . including the prestigious Grand Prix Prize at the Lens Awards 2024: Video of the Year. It's four if you count the time we somehow managed to win our local bar's monthly Speed Quiz.
Be more standout
100 + years
. . . of collective experience in business and as creatives.
Be more experienced
£25K (nearly)
. . . raised for Cure Leukaemia in memory of our colleague and dear friend, Dan Zalepa. A huge thank you to everyone who's contributed to the effort. Let's keep going.
Be more gamechanging
Let's talk.
