By Alaina Sheer,

After winning a Gold ADDY^® at the district level, Fahlgren Machine’s “So Many Choices” McDonald’s Miami billboard is now a National ADDY^® Awards Finalist.

The eye-catching billboard features giant pins marking the spots on a map where viewers can find a local McDonald’s. The edges of the map lift up in places so it looks like the pins are actually holding the map on the board. On the second billboard pictures of McDonald’s breakfast items are “taped” on the board, allowing them to slightly move in the wind.

Brilliant. Congratulations Machine!

By Kathleen Ramirez, Fahlgren EVP and Corporate Media Director

A few of the Fahlgren media darlings just returned to Ohio from a trip to Detroit for the 2008 Upfront Week, a time for networks to share sneak peeks of their upcoming programming schedules with advertisers

This year’s crop of pilots was a bit limited due the writer’s strike, but there are some likely hits and sure misses. Stay tuned for sneak peeks at some of those new shows in a future post. In the meantime, here is a recap of this year’s three primary network programming trends:

More Creative Ways to Connect with Consumers

CBS, NBC spent a lot of time discussing multi-platform opportunities. FOX, on the other hand, unveiled a concept dubbed “remote-free TV” available in two high-concept dramas “Fringe” (a J.J. Abrams project for all of you Lost fans) and “Dollhouse” (a Joss Whedon project for you Buffy fans.) This is FOX pledge to reduce the number of national commercials by 50% within these two programs.

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By Alaina Sheer,

Why Mommy Blogs are Hot and How to Break into the Niche

Women have always thirsted for a sense of community. They love to talk, to connect and to bond through each other’s experiences. Today more and more women are finding that community they crave online. According to the BlogHer ad network, 36.2 million women in the United States now actively participate in the blogosphere once a week.

Instead of venting to their husbands or friends, moms and women are blogging to their heart’s content about everything from dirty diapers, bad dates, the environment or that weird bug their kid just ate.

And they’re finding an audience - a very large audience - of devoted readers who feel emotionally connected to each other. They’re leaving comments, interacting with each other’s stories, linking to each other and building virtual communities. Marketers have just started to scratch the surface of this untapped medium.

But in a sea of blogs, where do you start?

Use blog ranking websites like Technorati to find the blogosphere’s most popular blogs. Find lesser known blogs, with authors more receptive to your product review or link requests at sites like AllTop and Blogged.

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By Alaina Sheer,

If you hadn’t heard - I’m now the “Blogging Queen.”

I earned my new nickname by walking around like Chicken Little shouting, “Blogs, Blogs, Blogs! The blogs are falling!” It was because I had started experiencing - first hand, with my personal blog - the infinite power of blogs and the opportunity they offer to every business, large and small.

Here are a few of the reasons why:

1. Search Engine Optimization. Search engine spiders are smart. Google engineers are smarter. They rank your website based on popularity (incoming links and hits) and relevancy (keywords and tags). They’re also very busy. If you haven’t updated your site in six months, the spiders take a break. Why bother coming back to scan your site if there aren’t any changes? Blogs can be updated daily with keyword rich content, and when they are - guess what? Blog hosting services like WordPress actually tell the spiders to come check out your new content. These are called pings.

2. Brand interaction. In all advertising, marketing and public relations efforts there is one universal goal - to make a positive, lasting impression on the consumer that leads them to action. Blogs, by their very nature, beg for interaction. There are reasons why GM, Coke and Dell have all been investing in blogs for years. They have all discovered that a blog is the perfect compliment to their other marketing efforts.

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