12 Creatives Share Their First Copywriting Gigs

Illustration by Will Maynard

Ask a 5 year old what they want to be when they grow up, and you’re more likely to hear something along the lines of princess/race car driver/lead veterinarian for the Paw Patrol cast than hear: “A copywriter!” (Although, if you do meet that kid, tell them to get back to us in about 15 years about our Marty summer residency.)

It’s not like today’s copywriters walked around elementary school penning scripts for fictional anti-acid spots or brainstorming best tag lines for car insurance campaigns. But copywriters are a resourceful, creative and imaginative bunch, and that has to stem from somewhere.

Curious about the origin stories of some of our favorite copywriters and communications pros, we asked them what their first copywriting assignment was. Some took this quite literally, telling us about the first professional gig they landed that paid them, and others got a little more creative with the prompt.

The examples below are emblematic of what makes copywriting so much fun — it requires you to be scrappy, dive deep into new and interesting communities and take creative chances. And, yep, sometimes it means you get to eat a lot of Taco Bell and make South Park jokes.

Kelsey Whipple, The Martin Agency copywriter:

“My elementary school, Mary A. Fisk, was holding a talent show. I wrote a song called “F.I.S.K.” to the tune of “Y.M.C.A.” I refused to be in the performance, but I made my friends sing it on stage. They sang it on the announcements every Friday. My fifth grade teacher took advantage of my newfound skill and paid me $5 to write a song to our beloved guidance counselor, who was retiring. The entire class was so mad at me for writing a sad (and horribly written) song that we all had to sing.”

Jared Schermer, Droga5 copywriter:

“For my first professional copywriting gig, we changed the outdoor letter board of a Burger King on South Park Avenue in Buffalo in response to a joke South Park made about us the week before. I've watched the show my whole life, so to be able to see my client in it, craft a response, sell it and have it make its rounds on the internet meant the world as a first project.”

Allison Rude, The Martin Agency creative director:

“My actual first paid copywriting job was in high school. Some kid paid me $15 to write his election speech.”

Hope Thomas, The Martin Agency copywriter:

“The year was 2013. I was in an A.P. U.S. History class and we had to write a thesis. We all had the option of writing a paper, making a presentation or taking the rather open-ended route of ‘make something entertaining,’ which no one else was interested in. Naturally, I was drawn to it. I was given the ‘brief’ of discussing Thomas Jefferson’s versus Alexander Hamilton's political ideologies, and I may or may not have written it as a rap to the tune of ‘Birthday Song’ by 2 Chainz. (The chorus was ‘All I want for my country is a big wad of dough.’)”

Mason Douglass, The Many senior copywriter:

“It was this absolutely embarrassing ad I made for a nonexistent hair dryer in my design class during my first quarter at Savannah College of Art & Design. I honestly don't remember what the assignment was, but it was not specifically to make an ad. I just did that because it was my major and I hadn't taken any ad classes yet, so I was ansty to make one. I did draw and color the ad myself, but the font choice is atrocious and the copy is top-level cringe. Somehow, I still got an A. Thankfully, 11 quarters later, I graduated and got my first job at Deutsch — so I must have gotten better.”

Jonathan Carl, The Martin Agency senior copywriter:

“I wrote a profile of my favorite N.C. barbecue restaurant for the local paper. I think I got $50, and the restaurant framed it and put it on the wall. Pretty sure all $50 went back into the restaurant.”

Pedro Furtado, Goodby Silverstein & Partners senior copywriter:

“I wish I had a cooler story to share, like that I used to write Tinder profiles for B-list celebrities or something. But not really — my first copywriting gig was as an intern at an ad agency, and my first brief was to write a print ad for a classical music CD collection. (Yes, that was a while ago.) I think I spent days writing hundreds of probably awful headlines. But I was thrilled; I just couldn't believe I was getting paid to write jokes about Mozart's wig. I still can't believe they pay me to do that.”

Lassiter Stone, The Martin Agency senior copywriter:

“I wrote an ‘Ask Lassiter’ column in my summer camp newsletter. I wrote to myself, then responded to myself. I guess I’ve been talking to myself for years.”

Paola Villatoro-Weir, The Martin Agency copywriter:

“I had to write organic post copy for a social platform called Figure1. It’s basically an Instagram/Reddit/WebMD for medical students and doctors around the world. They post rashes, surgeries, unexplainable growths — basically, if it’s strange, gross or absolutely terrifying, it’s on Figure1. Anyways, I was the weird quiet kid at her desk scrolling through pictures of cysts and unidentified body parts for my first few days.”

David Cappolino, McCann New York associate creative director:

“My first paid writing gig is still my favorite. During our last quarter at portfolio school, I, along with two friends and fellow aspiring copywriters, took a trip to visit as many West Coast agencies as we possibly could to try and land a job. We set up informational interviews, hit up contacts, even sneaked into a couple places. Amazingly, one of the agencies we visited, the now-defunct LA office of the now-renamed DraftFCB, contracted the three of us to write Taco Bell TV spots. So for two weeks, we created a makeshift writers room in my apartment, really got into the mindset of the Taco Bell consumer *wink*, and wrote tons of hilarious scripts. Of course, none of them got made.”

Stacy-Ann Ellis, The Martin Agency senior copywriter:

"I’ve been a writer for quite a while (#JournoLife), but the first time I got paid to add the ‘copy’ prefix was freelancing for an agency pitch. Admittedly I went into it a little blind, so what I felt was a fun, kinda expensive group project at the time I later learned was the thing that runs up ad folks’ blood pressure."

Anne Marie Hite, The Martin Agency SVP/Group Creative Director:

“My first foray into ‘advertising’ was in third grade for a mental health poster contest. I drew a family running toward a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow with the headline ‘Mental Health is wealth.’ I won first place, which got me 10 silver dollars and my picture on the front page of the newspaper. I’m sure somewhere in my adult subconscious I was like, ‘You should go into advertising, it’s so easy!’

I had never worked in advertising prior to entering the Portfolio Center, so I would say my first ad was technically my first assignment there. Since our whole class was meeting each other for the first time, it was basically our first impression of each other. To this day, I still remember the ads presented by almost every member of my class. I say all this because for some reason, I thought cow manure would be a good product to work on. Literally, we could choose anything in the world, and I chose that. My visual was a cow with flowers coming out of its behind, with the headline, ‘The end justifies the means.’”