The Legacy of Innovation
How an early presidential campaign helped shape the way Fose + McKay still thinks about technology, communications and timing.
It is easy now to forget how experimental the Internet still felt in the late 1990s. Organizations understood that they probably needed a website, but very few had figured out what a connected audience could actually mean.
Max Fose had a front-row seat to that change. His work with Senator John McCain eventually led to a significant role in McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, where he helped lead the campaign’s Internet efforts at a time when online fundraising, digital advertising and rapid communication with supporters were still relatively new ideas in national politics.
What made that experience interesting was not simply that the campaign used new technology. It was that the technology shortened the distance between someone becoming interested and actually doing something. A supporter could hear the candidate, visit the website, learn more, contribute, volunteer and join the campaign’s communications network while the moment was still fresh.
That idea has stayed with us.
The company that eventually became Fose + McKay grew out of a digital-first mindset, but it was never really about technology for technology’s sake. The more important question was always what the technology allowed an organization and its audience to do that had not been possible before.
Over the years, the platforms changed and the agency changed with them. Websites became more sophisticated. Search reshaped how people found information. Social media altered the speed and direction of public conversation. Mobile put that conversation in everyone’s pocket. Video became ubiquitous. Today, generative AI is reshaping the speed and economics of creative work.
Through all of those changes, we have tried to hold onto the part of innovation that matters most: curiosity with a purpose.
We like being early enough to understand what is changing. We like experimenting. We like figuring out whether a new tool can help a client communicate more clearly, move faster or build a stronger relationship with an audience.
We have also been around long enough to know that being first is not the same thing as being right. New technology earns its place when it solves a real problem or creates a meaningful opportunity. Otherwise, it is simply another new thing.
That balance between curiosity and practicality has shaped Fose + McKay for more than 25 years. It came from work in a very different digital world, but it continues to feel like a useful way to approach whatever comes next.