Emily in Paris: Things that the series got right and wrong about working in advertising

• Advertising and Media Insider catches up with Advertising folks to take a closer look at one of the most talked-about Netflix series of this year so far, Emily in Paris.
• Varun Duggirala, Co-founder of The Glitch, Podcaster and Entrepreneur, Henna Pande, VP - North, Kinnect and Binaifer Dulani, Creative Director, Dentsu Webchutney had some interesting thoughts on how the series portrayed agency life.

If you are a marketing or advertising professional who has dabbled with social media, I am sure you would have desperately wished to swap places with Netflix’s Emily in Paris. She is a ‘brilliant’ marketing executive who always gets approval in one go, can come up with out-of-the-box ideas every time you ask her, barely knows how to use hashtags right but has managed to find the formula behind going viral after every post, gets to combine PR, advertising, marketing, event management into one role and has a very active social life beyond work. She is living the dream, one that every advertising marketing professional yearns for! Watching this show itself is like taking a vacation, it serves as an escape that people in an overworked job role often crave.

However, this original Netflix series has polarized viewers since its debut on the platform. Its recently released season two has gathered flak for its stereotypical representation of Parisian culture and unrealistic portrayal of how easy, glamourous a marketing job can be. At the same time, it did get a few things right. The protagonist Emily, played by Lily Collins, is unafraid to challenge the status quo and the show also depicts how sexism is still present in ads.

We caught up with Varun Duggirala, Co-founder of The Glitch, Podcaster and Entrepreneur, Henna Pande, VP - North, Kinnect and Binaifer Dulani, Creative Director, Dentsu Webchutney to discuss a few things that Emily in Paris got right about marketing and a few things that they should do away with in season 3.

3 things that we at Advertising and Media and creative folks liked:

1. Advertising can be sexist but you shouldn’t be afraid to voice your opinions

Emily works in a marketing firm in Chicago and is transferred to Paris as her boss’ replacement in a luxury marketing firm. She works as a Marketing Executive but is heavily focused on social media. As a GenZ employee, she is never afraid to voice her opinions, even though it contradicts with people in authority. She calls out its agency for perpetuating misogyny and stereotypes in advertising on the shoot day of Maison Lavaux's De L'Heure perfume.


Credit: Netflix

2. Last-minute arrangements
When you work in advertising, there’s always one important person that you would miss to call before your final day of shoot and have to scroll through your contacts, beg a few people to make arrangements at the eleventh hour. In Emily in Paris, they forget to call for a DJ and Emily’s friend Mindy comes to her rescue.


Credit: Netflix

3. Connections are everything!

The series portrays advertising and marketing as a job where you don’t have control over what your day is going to look like -- it highly depends on external factors and everyday events. Social media trends can influence your idea and overall work.

While advertising is not just for extroverts, it is definitely easier for extroverts such as Emily to quickly find the right people for the job and execute her idea without missing the trend.


Credit: Netflix

Few things we didn’t like:

1. You don’t become an influencer in a day

Emily turns to Instagram to cure her boredom and randomly posts a selfie with the hashtag ‘room with a view’ -- a hashtag that no one follows but her Instagram just cannot stop buzzing. She rises to fame on Instagram after sharing a few stories, not even posts or reels. She starts with 50 followers and rises to thousands in a week. With this, Emily in Paris trivializes influencer marketing and content creation. You don’t become an influencer with a single croissant photo, only if it were that easy.

2. There’s no formula to go viral
Unless you are a Kardashian, a picture of your dress won’t attract 177k likes in a few hours and especially not with a hashtag that no one looks up.

Credit: Netflix

3. No human can churn out ideas every minute

Credit: Netflix

In real life, every creative faces self-doubt and within all of the chaos, they find one ‘aha’ moment. These moments of genius are scarce. However, Emily is brimming with ideas, even when it is not her account.