The story
Founding and early expansion
H. Smoot Fahlgren founded Fahlgren & Associates in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1962. After expansion through West Virginia and Pittsburgh, Pa., the company merged with the advertising agency owned by Cincinnati-based David Ferris in 1970 to create Fahlgren & Ferris. From there, expansion continued to Philadelphia, Toledo, Columbus, Washington, D.C., New York City and Atlanta.
Acquisitions
Fahlgren & Ferris and Swink Advertising merged to form Fahlgren & Swink on July 1, 1984. The merged companies together acquired Atlanta-based Nucifora & Associates.
In October 1988, Fahlgren & Swink was acquired by Lintas New York Inc., a subsidiary of The Interpublic Group of Companies. At the time, Fahlgren had offices in Parkersburg, W. Va.; Atlanta; Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, Ohio; Greensboro, N.C., and Tampa.
When Interpublic acquired another company, Ammirati & Puris, which was the lead national creative agency for Burger King, the conflict with Fahlgren client McDonald's presented the opportunity for the company to buy itself back from the holding company, again becoming an independent company.
In 1989, Fahlgren & Swink acquired Florida-based Benito Advertising, which had offices in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville and handled multiple Florida co-ops of McDonald's. The resulting company was named Fahlgren & Swink/Benito.
In May 1990, Fahlgren & Swink bought Hawley & Martin and became known as Fahlgren & Martin, with David N. Martin serving as chairman.
In 1993, Fahlgren Martin sold Hawley Martin to Arnold Fortuna Lawner & Cabot, again becoming known as Fahlgren.
2009-present
In 2009, Neil Mortine was named CEO of Fahlgren.
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Throughout 2010, Fahlgren Mortine completed three acquisitions, beginning in January with the acquisition of Cleveland, Ohio-based Edward Howard & Co., followed in March by the acquisition of Columbus, Ohio-based GRIP Technology, and, finally, in November with the acquisition of certain assets of Sabatino/Day of Dayton, Ohio.
In 2010, Fahlgren celebrated 35 years as agency of record for McDonald's co-ops, having previously handled advertising and public relations for several in Ohio and Florida.
On March 29, 2011, Fahlgren announced it was changing its name to Fahlgren Mortine to honor the company's advertising and public relations founders.
On May 14, 2024, The Shipyard completed its purchase of the Ohio-based advertising agency.
From Wikipedia’s article on Fahlgren Mortine, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4