Five authoritative tips on navigating professional life in New York from the award-winning creative at GALE
The mythology of the New York advertising scene is often written in ink that dried decades ago. We are told stories of the Mad Men era, of three-martini lunches, and of a city that bowed to the whims of creative geniuses in corner offices. But the modern reality of breaking into the industry is far less glamorous and significantly more gritty. It is a story of air mattresses, competitive internships, navigating the L train, and finding your voice in a room full of people shouting to be heard.
Few people embody this modern narrative as well as Emma Gubitz. Known to her friends and colleagues simply as GUBGUB, Gubitz is a copywriter who has turned the chaos of early career life into a fine art. Currently lending her pen to GALE, she works on major accounts like Pella Windows & Doors and contributes to major new business pitches. Her journey from a student desk in Savannah to a professional desk in Manhattan is a masterclass in resilience, creativity, and the power of being unapologetically yourself.
Originally from Toronto, Gubitz made the bold decision to head south to the Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD. There, she did not merely participate; she dominated. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a cumulative GPA of 4.0, a B.F.A in Advertising and Branding, and a concentration in Copywriting. Her academic shelf is groaning under the weight of accolades, including the prestigious Red Dot Design Award and a Best in Show at the SCAD Advertising Awards.
However, as every creative eventually learns, a perfect GPA does not help you navigate the rental market in Bushwick. It does not teach you how to survive your first ninety days in a fast-paced agency or how to keep your concepts alive when the legal team gets involved.
Gubitz dropped everything after graduation and moved to New York City to pursue advertising. She spent her first month sleeping on an air mattress, a rite of passage that seems almost mandatory for the committed creative. Today, she has been in the city for just over a year. She is still trying to pretend she fits into Bushwick, spending her free time lifting heavy things for fun and working toward a personal trainer certification.
We sat down with Gubitz to dissect her rapid ascent. From winning global competitions like ManifestOff to crafting an award-winning mock campaign for Knix Period Underwear, she has gathered a wealth of knowledge. Here, Emma Gubitz offers five authoritative and important tips on how to navigate professional life in New York.
Tip 1: Embrace the Chaos of the Start-Up Phase
The transition from university to the professional world is often jarring, but for a creative moving to New York, it can feel like stepping off a cliff. Gubitz emphasizes that the first step to success is accepting that the landing will be bumpy.
“I am a Torontonian city girl who found herself at an art college in Georgia,” Gubitz explains. “I moved to NYC and spent a month on an air mattress. That period was not just about saving money; it was about stripping away the comfort zone. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable if you want to grow.”
This “air mattress era” is a metaphor for the early days of a career. When Gubitz arrived, she did not have a permanent address or a guaranteed path to the top. She had her portfolio and a hunger to work. She jumped straight into the deep end with an internship at Laundry Service, a Brooklyn agency, where she was selected from a highly competitive applicant pool.
“The biggest difference between my first ninety days in the industry and my life now, three years post-grad, is the level of panic,” she laughs. “In the beginning, you feel like you are drowning in information. You are trying to figure out the subway, the office culture, and the client needs all at once.”
She was assigned to accounts, including Google (during her internship at 24/7 Laundry Service in Brooklyn) and Android. It was a high-pressure environment that required her to learn fast. She had to navigate the complexities of a massive tech client while still figuring out where to get lunch in the borough.
“You have to embrace the chaos,” she advises. “Do not try to make your life look perfect immediately. The hardest days, the ones you want to escape, are often where the most learning happens. If you can survive the air mattress and the internship grind, you can survive anything.”
Gubitz points out that many young creatives try to replicate the structure of school in their professional lives. They look for a syllabus where there is none. In New York, the syllabus is written day by day. You have to be adaptable. You have to be willing to haul your laundry four blocks in the rain and show up to work the next day ready to write brilliant copy.
Her advice is to lean into the instability. Use the energy of the city. The noise, the crowds, the struggle, it all feeds the work. It makes you tougher. It makes you a New Yorker.
Tip 2: Authenticity is Your Greatest Creative Tool
In an industry that is often accused of being superficial, Gubitz argues that radical authenticity is the only way to stand out. She describes herself as a “shameless person,” someone who is willing to admit her day-to-day shoes are her dad’s ASICS sneakers from 20 years ago.
“My candid personality reflects in my writing: bold, outgoing, and authentic,” she says. “I want to create Ad stuff that makes people say ‘Remember when that brand did that?’ ten years after it was produced. My mission is to help create brand content that people would fly out to experience.”
This philosophy is evident in her process. When we asked her to walk us through her workflow from brief to final line, she emphasized the importance of starting with the truth.
“Where do I start? I start with the human element,” Gubitz says. “You look at the brief, but then you look at the world. What are people actually saying? What are they afraid to say?”
A prime example of this is a student project she developed for Knix Period Underwear. Although this was a mock project and she did not work for Knix directly, the campaign won a Red Dot Design Award and multiple accolades from the American Advertising Federation. It tackled a subject often shrouded in euphemism, and Gubitz did not shy away from the product’s reality.
“The insight was that we needed to stop whispering,” she explains. “We needed to speak loudly. That is what made it click. The copy had to be as bold as the product.”
At GALE, she applies this same authenticity to a diverse range of clients. Whether she is writing for Pella Windows & Doors or pitching major new business, she tries to find the human voice within the brand.
“How do you know when the copy is right?” she asks rhetorically. “You feel it. It stops sounding like ‘marketing’ and starts sounding like a conversation. If I write a line and it feels stiff or fake, I delete it. You have to trust your gut.”
Gubitz believes that her background, the music training, the jewelry design, the zine making all contribute to her voice. She does not try to sound like other copywriters. She sounds like Emma Gubitz.
“Don’t try to fit into a mold,” she advises. “The city is full of people trying to be someone else. The only space that is not crowded is the one where you are being yourself. Be the person wearing their dad’s 20-year-old ASICS. Be the person who lifts heavy things. Put that weirdness into the work.”
Tip 3: Resilience is a Muscle You Must Build
The rejection in New York advertising is swift and frequent. Ideas die on the vine daily. Concepts get watered down by committees. Feedback can be harsh. Gubitz says that surviving this requires building mental resilience, much like she builds physical strength in the gym.
“When I am not working, I am lifting heavy things for fun,” she says. “It is a great parallel. You do not walk into the gym and deadlift three hundred pounds on day one. You build up to it. It is the same with creative resilience.”
We asked her about the toughest feedback she has received in NYC and how it changed her approach.
“I have had moments where I thought I wrote something brilliant, and a creative director tore it apart,” she admits. “They told me it was too clever, or it missed the strategy. It hurts in the moment. But you have to learn to separate your ego from the work. The feedback is not about you; it is about solving the problem.”
One of the most common frustrations for a copywriter is seeing a great idea get diluted. We asked her how she protects a concept when the fear sets in.
“I can think of many early projects where, as feedback rounds came in, the request was to make things ‘cleaner’ and ‘safer,'” she notes. “My approach is to defend the strategy, not just the creative. If I can show that the bold choice is actually the safest business decision because it will get attention, I have a better chance of saving the idea.”
Gubitz points to her experience with the PUMA Design Competition at SCAD as a lesson in resilience and conviction. Her team was selected from over fifty entries to win first place. They had to present their concept to industry professionals and defend their choices. That experience taught her that you have to believe in your work before anyone else will.
“You have to be the champion of your own ideas,” she says. “But you also have to know when to pivot. Resilience is not just about being stubborn. It is about bouncing back. If an idea dies, you have to be able to come up with another one five minutes later.”
Her advice is to treat rejection as data. It tells you what does not work so you can find what does. Do not let a killed script ruin your week. In New York, there is always another brief coming down the pipeline.
Tip 4: Community Over Competition
There is a stereotype that the New York advertising world is cutthroat, with creatives stabbing each other in the back to get ahead. Gubitz has found the opposite to be true, but only because she actively seeks out community rather than just “networking.”
“What is one move you made post-grad that accelerated your growth?” we asked.
“ManifestOff,” she answers immediately.
ManifestOff is a global creative competition hosted by Mojo Supermarket, a highly respected independent agency known for disrupting the industry. Gubitz did not just enter; she won. The victory was a significant milestone, validating her talent on a global stage.
“Winning ManifestOff was huge,” she reflects. “But the real value was the connection to Mojo Supermarket and the other creatives involved. It opened doors.”
The relationship did not end with the trophy. In 2025, following her win, Gubitz was invited back to serve as a Jury Member. She sat alongside senior creative leaders to judge the next generation of talent.
“It was a full-circle moment,” she says. “Going from participant to judge showed me that this industry rewards participation. If you show up and do good work, people notice. Mojo Supermarket has been a massive part of my development.”
Gubitz stresses that community building happens everywhere, not just at awards shows. She is an active member of the Bushwick Zine Club and attends events like Type Thursday. She volunteers with St. Luke’s Community Closet and is planning to work with Free Arts NYC.
“You need to have a life outside of the agency,” she warns. “If you only hang out with ad people, your world gets very small. I get so much inspiration from the Zine Club or just listening to stories at The Moth. You need to be around people who are making things for the sheer joy of it.”
She also highlights the importance of internal collaboration.
“How do you collaborate with art directors, strategy, and account teams day to day?”
“It has to be a genuine partnership,” she says. “My art director is my other half. We are in the trenches together. And with the account teams, I try to be empathetic. They are the ones dealing with the client panic. If I can help them, they will help me. Collaboration is great when you stop worrying about credit. The best work happens when you forget whose idea it was.”
Her tip is to stop viewing other creatives as rivals. They are your support system. They are the people who will hire you, recommend you, or just buy you a drink when a project goes south. Build a community, not a contact list.
Tip 5: Define Your Own Future
The final piece of advice from Gubitz is about agency, not the kind you work for, but the kind you possess. In a city that moves this fast, it is easy to get swept along by the current. Gubitz insists on steering her own ship.
“What are you building now, and what do you want to be known for next?”
“I am currently creating a collaborative zine centered on coincidence stories,” she reveals. “I am also planning to launch a Substack focused on real-life coincidence stories. I have always been fascinated by the little moments where the universe aligns.”
Gubitz has a history of side projects. “I used to run a small T-shirt company in high school,” she shares. She was also a jewelry designer who sold work for charity and had a background in music. These pursuits are not distractions; they are fuel.
“You cannot rely on your day job to fulfill every creative urge you have,” she says. “You have to build things for yourself. The zines, the writing, that is what keeps the creative well full.”
She is also deeply invested in mentorship, helping those who are coming up behind her. She is an upcoming mentor for the SCAD Ad Club and has spoken at The Ad Club. She remembers the impact of her own mentors, like Luke Sullivan, whose class first made her fall in love with advertising.
“I want to be known for helping others break in,” she says. “I want to be the person who makes the path a little less scary for the next girl from Toronto with an air mattress and a dream.”
Gubitz is looking ahead to a career that is defined not just by the awards on her shelf, but by the impact she has on the culture and the people around her.
“What advice would you give others?” we asked in closing.
“Just start,” she says. “Start the zine. Start the application. Start the move. You are never going to feel fully ready. The city does not wait for you to be ready. It waits for you to be present.”
Emma Gubitz is certainly present. She has carved out a space for herself in the world’s most competitive market, armed with a sharp pen, a 4.0 work ethic, and a personality that refuses to be watered down. As she continues to climb the ranks at GALE and beyond, one thing is certain: New York may be a concrete jungle, but Emma Gubitz knows exactly how to navigate it.
About the Expert
Emma Gubitz, also known to her creative peers as GUBGUB, is a Copywriter at GALE in New York City. She spends her days crafting copy for major brands like Pella Windows & Doors and contributing to major new business pitches. Originally from Toronto, Gubitz graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A in Advertising and Branding. Her academic career was distinguished by a perfect 4.0 GPA and the prestigious Best in Show title at the SCAD Advertising Awards.
Since moving to NYC, she has quickly made her mark on the advertising industry. Her portfolio includes a Red Dot Design Award-winning mock campaign created as a student project for Knix Period Underwear, as well as significant work for clients such as Google, Cigna Healthcare, and K-Y during her early career tenures. A winner of the global ManifestOff competition hosted by Mojo Supermarket, she was later invited to serve as a judge for the same contest alongside senior industry leaders. When she is not crafting integrated campaigns or mentoring students, Gubitz can be found in Bushwick. She enjoys lifting heavy weights and participating in the Bushwick Zine Club. She brings a bold, candid, and authentic energy to everything she creates.
Emma Gubitz’s website, emmagubitz.com, is currently being refreshed with her latest professional work. You can find her on Instagram at @stuffbygubgub.
