Emily In Paris: 5 Things It Gets Right About Working In Marketing (& 5 Things It Gets Wrong)
Netflix's Emily In Paris may be coming back to screens sooner than fans thought it would, even though the show gathered a fair bit of flak for several things, not limited to the cultural disrespect of France, an unrealistic wardrobe and expenses, and the absurd representation of marketing as a profession.
Emily is portrayed as a junior, yet brilliant marketer, but she barely knows how to use hashtags or take a decent photo. Her lack of teamwork is also quite irritating, and her "amazing marketing tips" don't always make sense. Emily in Paris didn't completely botch the profession's depiction, however, and there were some things they got right too.
10 Right: Out Of The Box Thinking Works
Being creative forms the foundation of marketing and public relations. While there are traditional marketers out there, like Sylvie was, who like to work with tried and tested formulas, out-of-the-box thinking can be risky but also welcome in the field.
Emily drew inspiration from Van Gogh's exhibition for her campaign to make Paris sleep under the stars for a mattress company, and snapped photos of Brooklyn's dress surrounded by heels, lipstick, and alcohol bottles on the go. When she had new ideas, she spoke out loud without fear, which is good practice in general.
9 Wrong: Spontaneous Posting Rarely Happens
While the spontaneous flat lay of the Pierre Cadault dress was quick thinking on her part, it is almost impossible in today's day and age that brands as big as his would allow posts to go on their feed without any approval processes for the visual, text, and hashtags — of which there was only one, which was also outdated.
In fact, there are no calendars for social media at all in Emily's world, and all posts are put up by a junior executive without being vetted by several levels and the brand itself, which never happens. Of the many plot holes, audiences want an answer to this one in season 2.
8 Right: Marketing Can Be Sexist
In the most Gen Z way possible, Emily expected better from companies and wanted them to be socially conscious of their campaigns and how they represented women. In that case, the show depicted the misogyny still present in ads, especially on the shoot day of Maison Lavaux's De L'Heure perfume.
Even when she was told to ideate for Vaga-Jeune, she expressed her dislike at how the French word for the vagina was a masculine term and attempted to start a conversation on sexism in the industry.
7 Wrong: American Strategy Won't Work On A French Audience
Emily glided into Savoir with a mission: to teach the French the American ways of working and marketing, which is culturally problematic in Emily In Paris but also makes no sense. From the perspective of marketing, researching the audience is a big chunk of what goes into making a campaign happen, because audiences in one country would be vastly different in taste, likes, dislikes, and general mindset from one on another continent.
For Emily to use tactics that worked in America on an audience in France without any research is nonsensical, and voids all her supposed successes as they were brainwaves not backed by facts.
6 Right: Networking Works
Marketing is not a profession meant solely for extroverts, but it definitely suits them well. Easy interactions and networking are key in the industry, as was visible with Emily's friendships and professional relationships too.
She befriended Camille, through whom she met Randy Zimmer at her art gallery and was able to pitch a collaboration between Zimmer's hotels and Maison Lavaux where the latter would create a signature scent for the hotel. She was also able to rope in Camille's champagne manufacturing parents into Savoir's roster of clients with her novel "Champere" campaign. Her connection with Pierre Cadault also proved useful when the AFL wanted a dress donated for the gala, which Emily was able to achieve with her networking.
5 Wrong: Going Viral Isn't Formulaic
Unlike what Emily In Paris tries to convey, there is no set formula for something going viral on the internet. In the show, it seems as though the executive has cracked the code to going viral, which in her book just meant the more outrageous, the more chances of it going viral.
Her "Sexy or Sexist" campaign went viral because it was bold, her essay on the French word for vagina being a masculine word was gobbled up by French stars, and the photo of Brooklyn's dress in a sexy tangle of debauchery got over 177k likes in a few hours. This approach would likely lead to more fails than virality, which is unpredictable.
4 Right: Social Media Can Track Everything
This quote was said in obliviousness, but when Emily said “The best thing is, we can track everything. Who has used what, when, where, and for how long” to a client, she wasn't wrong. There's an alarming depth to how much information marketers can mine about social media users and their habits, and the show got that right.
Brands with marketing agencies can and will collect data on their demographic to target better, see what works and what doesn't work with their audience, and use that to make more profits, which is a darker reality of marketing.
3 Wrong: A Campaign That Misses Its Target Audience And Goal Is Not A Successful One
One of the flaws of Emily In Paris was that it just wasn't self-aware, nor was its titular character. When trying to convince a client about her abilities, Emily talks about a vaccine campaign that she had done whilst in America for the Virgin Islands, where she had managed to market the vaccine so well that it turned up when people searched for words like “tropical beach,” “paradise,” or “topless beach selfies."
This led to a huge increase in tourism for the Islands, but this was by no means a moment of pride for any marketer. The original campaign's objective was to increase vaccinations, which the campaign did not fulfill, and it was pointless to target an audience searching for nude photos as they would not be looking to get vaccinated. Emily only showed how terribly she handled a campaign and how it wildly lost control with an unexpected "pro" which served no purpose to the client.
2 Right: There Are Several Projects Happening Together
Working on several brands and many overlapping projects is something that definitely happens in marketing agencies, and the protagonist was very much involved in Maison Lavaux, Vaga-Jeune, Pierre Cadault, Hästens, and Camille's parents' champagne brand simultaneously, and still had her creative juices flowing.
The girl was a never-ending well of ideas and was made for the marketing life because she effortlessly juggled all these clients, and also excelled in each campaign she suggested.
1 Wrong: Becoming An Influencer Is Never That Easy
Every viewer would agree that Emily's rise to fame on Instagram was the most unrealistic thing to happen on the show. If her photos had been fantastic, or her captions and hashtagging had been on point, one could have still believed her meteoric rise, but she managed to completely waste every opportunity with average photos, non-funny captions, and single hashtags that nobody would search for.
Content creation and being an influencer requires an investment of time and effort, which Emily doesn't put in with her odd croissant photos. In today's day and age where visuals are sophisticated and being a content creator is a full-time job, there is no way she could have become an influencer with those posts.