What drives us all at bd2, is achieving real business benefit for our customers through brilliantly effective and innovative design, technical and marketing interventions.
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What drives us all at bd2, is achieving real business benefit for our customers through brilliantly effective and innovative design, technical and marketing interventions.
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At bd2, we use creative and strategic thinking, combined with extensive experience, to devise, design, develop and market highly effective digital solutions and coherent brand strategies.
We work within our own structured methodologies and processes, which incorporate the best of recognised leading techniques such as Agile and Prince 2, and have refined these through two decades of successful project delivery.
We provide a full suite of supporting skills and creative services which are delivered by a highly experienced team of professionals which incorporate the skills of the Chartered Designer, Chartered Marketer, Prince 2 Certified Project Manager, BCS Accredited Tester and Microsoft and Umbraco Certified Developer.
We design and build integrated e-commerce and bespoke software solutions which place the user at the centre of our thinking at all times. We use Microsoft’s ASP.net and SQL server framework and the leading Umbraco content management system. We are Umbraco Certified Partners.
We help organisations of all types communicate their brand messages consistently across appropriate channels.
We believe creative thinking provides the spark that breathes life into any design be it for paper or screen - to get it noticed, to grab attention, to make it stand out from the crowd and to help solve problems through lateral thought and innovation.
We know what we want from our online presence and bd2 know how to do it.
An agency that knows what they’re talking about and listens to what you’re talking about.
We are used to dealing with leading London agencies so we were genuinely surprised to find a local agency with such a high level of creativity right on our doorstep.
We wanted an EPOS system that could be customer facing, that should be as easy to use as a website and of course as beautiful as a website. That look and feel was important.
bd2 and I have done amazing, great business together with real insight. The projects completed for HP are brilliant, high quality and innovative. bd2 - highly regarded and recommended.
It’s not just a design agency - we brainstorm projects and work out strategies together way before the design stage.
We’ve been delighted with the partnership with bd2. The team has consistently exceeded our expectations.
We would like to say a huge thank you for all your support. Everyone at bd2 has been lovely and we really appreciate that. People like yourselves are what made a difference to the testimonial and made it such a fabulous success.
bd2 impressed me with their professional approach and highly developed methodologies.
I’ve had a really positive experience and get a sense that we’ll work in partnership for years to come
bd2 has been delivering commercially successful projects since 1998, building invaluable experience and a global client base, to become a leading independent digital agency.
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bd2 was established as a limited company by Will Bentley back in 1998. The business has evolved from those early days of the internet, gaining experience by trading through the dotcom boom and bust, and by learning from delivering ever-more complex projects, into a leading independent digital creative agency.
Will, a designer by profession, strategically built a team of ‘best of breed’ professionals. Each individual bringing their own complimentary skill-set - from design and marketing, to software development and project management - and their experience.
All working within bd2‘s processes and infrastructure which are focused on delivering results and have, most importantly, built the client relationships that define bd2 today.
bd2 now supports businesses of all shapes and sizes from local, regional and national onto global companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, one of the world’s largest software companies.
It is the agile approach to customer support that allows the team to deliver one-off design, development and marketing communications projects through to large scale bespoke software implementations all from our own studios close to the centre of Wigan.
Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but the stories you tell. Video is one of the most powerful ways to tell those stories online and it's become an expected component of a website.
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When we started building websites back in the late 90s, we had to keep images small because of the limitations of dial-up download speeds. As technology has advanced - specifically through widespread high-speed connectivity with superfast broadband, virtually ubiquitous wi-fi and 4G – the web has progressed from text and image to moving image and video. This has driven the internet’s transition from an information based media, to a more experiential one with many websites now delivering full screen streaming video.
Whether it’s on Snapchat, Periscope, Youtube or Facebook we’re all now consuming video online as it delivers a more immersive and involving user experience. The value of the medium has been recognsied by the big internet players for some time as evidenced by Google’s acquisition of Youtube back in 2006. Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, sums up the shift: “Expect video to get embedded into almost every internet service, similar to how the internet transitioned from text-heavy to image-heavy services in the last decade.”
Because video is playing an increasingly important role in the sites we create at bd2, we made the strategic decision to bring all production in-house. This allows us to be responsive, cost-effective and, by delivering the whole process from filming to editing ourselves, we control quality. We add further value by ensuring consistency of message, tone and style to align with a client’s overall brand, digital and marketing strategies. From a simple ‘talking head’ presentation, instructional video, case study or company promo, video is often more engaging than text and image as it really brings the subject matter to life by delivering a more immersive user experience.
We're always looking for people with the right abilities, skill-set and attitude to further develop our business - in fact we've often recruited when we haven't been recruiting because we recognised these abilities.
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We believe that our high staff retention levels reflect real job satisfaction made possible by a combination of the working environment, the variety and challenges of the work we undertake and the excellent rewards and benefits we offer. We have dedicated development and design studios, free parking and a central location - which is just a 10 minute walk from Wigan town centre and its mainline rail station.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch - except at bd2 as lunch is included for staff. It's a tax free perk which saves £££s, we have a box of fresh fruit delivered from the local market every week - just help yourself and bean-to-cup coffee machines for real, fresh coffees.
Our people are the most important part of the business so we offer a private health package and a company pension scheme.
We take a very flexible approach to the working day and are happy to adapt to meet anyone's needs.
We also provide structured training and mentoring support. We're into government voucher schemes, including childcare vouchers and the cycle to work scheme, [we have a shower installed] as they're really tax efficient and very helpful!
As well as random social events, such as a summer BBQ in the car park and Christmas cocktail bar, we all go out to a local restaurant once a quarter for a company lunch. We shut the offices for the whole festive period, gift some free holidays and take everyone away for a weekend.
Finally, we have a completely open recruitment policy and are interested in talking to the right people regardless of race, religion, colour, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age and the football team you may support – yes, even Manchester United.
If all this sounds interesting, please contact bryony@bd2.co.uk
We aim to make a positive contribution to society, to our community and to encourage the links between industry and academia.
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We try to make a positive contribution to our community and to society in the best ways we can and believe we add most value by contributing our skills and services. To that end, we have provided work for charities such as The Bread and Butter Thing, Hope for Children, Joining Jack, Wigan Youth Zone and The Wigan 10k all on a pro bono basis.
For example, we donated our time and resources to create the brand, website, digital and viral marketing campaigns for the Joining Jack charity. This work helped raise awareness of the charity supporting them as they gathered a million pounds worth of donations in around 12 months - from a standing start and with no budget.
We're passionate about the link between academia and industry as we recognise that the next generation of designers and developers need to be skilled appropriately.
We try to take all the opportunities we can to make a positive contribution to education so have provided placements for students, under graduates and graduates which has led to several full-time appointments, both within bd2 and within the wider network of our suppliers and clients.
We have also contributed our time to support careers days, given talks and presentations in schools and colleges, set project briefs, delivered critiques, provided evaluation, sat on steering committees and generally supported education in any way we can.
We're always happy to hear from any organisations, charities and institutions which may benefit from our support.
Please contact bryony@bd2.co.uk with some basic information and we'll let you know if and how we'd be able to help.
