Originally published through the Sydney Review of Books

and featured in Arts and Letters Daily –  full text available here.

My first job in advertising was a fluke; I had no formal training and never went to ad school. Like many of the uninitiated, I thought copywriting had something vaguely to do with intellectual property and trademarking.

 

I was in my mid-twenties and living in Copenhagen during the zenith of Vice Media, who were rapidly shifting from edge-lord gonzo journalism to becoming an advertising juggernaut. To service their growing list of global clients, they needed native English-speaking copywriters, of which there wasn’t a surplus in the Danish capital. I saw a Facebook post from a friend who worked there, an SOS for such copywriters, and I decided to reach out.  

 

As I explained in my email, while I didn’t meet all the criteria they mentioned, I was a writer. So I didn’t see why I couldn’t learn whatever it was they needed me to do easily enough. I sent them a ‘portfolio’. It included the opening from a novel in progress, a chase scene between a guy riding a rescued dairy cow and a pack of angry police dogs; an article about Danish-government online surveillance that I’d written during an internship at an English-speaking newspaper; and a link to my then Tumblr blog about street food called ‘Good and Greasy CPH’.  

         ‘Great,’ they said. 
         ‘Great,’ I responded.  

 

Within a few weeks, I was working in Vice’s palatial Scandinavian offices as a copywriter. They had me on a part-time student contract that saw me earn as much as I was being paid before as a waiter. Back then, being paid anything at all for writing was an all-too rare privilege. Little ol’ me? I was stoked. 

 

Once I finished my Bachelor of Arts, Vice rewarded me with a full-time contract as a junior copywriter. My chest hummed with excitement whenever I strode through the heavy wooden doors of the inner-city heritage building into the capacious, high-ceilinged office. 

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I felt part of an ecosystem of young

 

creatives frolicking in an endless

 

stream of thrilling projects

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... which we would discuss (along with our weekends’ partying) over complimentary buffet lunches. We drank beers at our desks on Friday afternoons, when they’d turn on the big speakers and blast the trap music that was in vogue. It was awesome, and I was proud to be a copywriter.  

 

I had been hired by an Australian woo-girl and art director. I think she gave me the job partly as she appreciated having a fellow Sydneysider around. Her 2IC was my first real copywriting mentor, a Danish guy who was nice enough, but had a vulgar sense of humour and a somewhat abrasive, American-ish accent. Whenever we got a new brief, he would begin his brainstorm by making up a rap about the product, to get in the zone.  

 

Under their tutelage, I learned the ropes of advertising. It quickly became apparent that the bigger the client, the more budget they had for projects, and the cooler these projects would be. The downside was that the company you were helping to look cool was probably evil: multinational corporations, advertising to kids, Big Tobacco, that kind of thing. The more wholesome clients generally needed more basic work done and had less money for creativity and coolness.  

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