A NEW era has begun for Birmingham-based PR, design and digital agency Barques as it celebrates the launch of a new division with three account wins.

Barques Arts has been created to provide cultural and digital organisations with support in audience development and engagement through both traditional PR and digital mediums such as social media.

The new division of the agency was officially launched with an event at Birmingham’s IKON Gallery. Among those attending were Arts Council England, Birmingham Hippodrome, Millennium Point, DASH and the University of Birmingham.

Barques Arts – led by Chris Brown - already has a strong portfolio of cultural clients, having worked with the Library of Birmingham, Grain, Dash, Capsule and the University of Birmingham.

This was strengthened further at the beginning of 2015 with a series of new account wins, which include Southside BID, BOM Lab and Digital Birmingham’s Digital Academy.

As Southside BID enters its re-ballot year, Barques will provide PR and social media support, raising awareness of its successes as well as promoting the area’s leisure and tourism offering.

Opening in November, BOM (Birmingham Open Media) is a creative, collaborative workspace that explores art, activism and open culture. Barques will assist in raising awareness of the space and its events programme through both local and national media.

As part of Birmingham’s Smart City agenda, Digital Birmingham has launched the Greater Birmingham Digital Academy, which aims to equip businesses with the tools and knowledge to take advantage of digital technology. Barques will deliver a number of workshops as part of the programme, as well as manage PR and social media.

Chris Brown, head of Barques Arts, said: “As Birmingham and the rest of the UK enters a cultural renaissance, organisations will be competing heavily for audience engagement. As such, it’s important that they use the right tools to engage with both visitors and customers.

“Our aim is to ensure the right message gets to the right audience, whether that’s through an article in a newspaper, a tweet on Twitter, an email campaign, or other forms of traditional and digital PR.”

Barques PR director Paul Skipp said: “Chris is well known and respected as one of the leading PR experts in the arts and digital sector. He has worked with an impressive range of arts and cultural clients for many years and so it made sense for us to utilise his skills and contacts further by creating a division entirely dedicated to the sector. Winning new clients Southside BID, Digital Birmingham and BOM in the past month has given the new division an amazing starting point from which to grow.”

For more information about Barques Arts please visit www.barquespr.co.uk