Emily in Paris gets a lot of flack — flack from the American expat community who think
she makes Americans look ridiculous, flack from Parisians who worry the show objectifies their
city and culture, annnnd today, from this social media marketer who wonders if future social media
managers will be disappointed when they realize their first job isn’t quite this glamorous.
Social media marketing industry representation is still pretty rare to come by, considering the job
isn’t really that old. The only other show I can think of with a social media manager
main character is The Bold Type — comment down below if you’d like me to share my
thoughts on that someday — but Emily in Paris is definitely an interesting ride.
In case you’re new here, I’m Latasha, I’ve spent many years working as a social media
marketer at agencies, in-house roles, and and as an entrepreneur. For several years,
I even worked with a Paris-based startup as their first social media executive, so
while I have my own firsthand cultural critiques of Emily in Paris, I’ll leave that part to the
experts. Today, let’s focus on what EIP got wrong — and right — about her marketing job.
Oh, and yes — there may be spoilers, so if you haven’t at least finished season one,
I’d definitely recommend coming back after you do.
Let’s start with what they got right:
In marketing, you have to think outside of the box Ideas might be born in boardrooms, but they really
take shape out in the real world, whether that’s a physical or virtual location. I think the show
does a good job of showing Emily’s agility — from dreaming up guerrilla marketing campaigns for her
client Pierre Cadault, whipping out her iPhone for the perfect candid shot, to pulling in a friend to
sing at a company event in season two. The best marketers should think quickly on their feet…
and it doesn’t hurt to be well-connected. This is something I’ll admit freelancers could take a page
from; we often are so rigid about our “packages” or set number of hours available for something,
but we should really think about just getting the result for the client. Of course, you’ve gotta set
boundaries to avoid being abused in that regard, but when I worked for my French client in their
NYC office, it wasn’t uncommon to play the role of event coordinator, social media photographer,
and casting agent all in one day. Though juggling party trays of vegetables up a flight of stairs
in heels wasn’t in my job description, the end result is what mattered, and those veggie trays
led to happy, not hungry influencers, which led to millions of social media impressions for the
brand, which led to explosive social media metrics being reported in my portfolio today.
Beyond that, there’s a lot that’s just… not realistic about Emily’s job:
First, you can’t just go rogue In the first season, we see Emily send
a feminist message about… vaginas, by way of an Instagram photo of her client’s product, WITHOUT
consulting anyone about it. Luckily, Brigitte Macron tweeted about it, the client was overjoyed,
and Emily’s impulsive post was well-received. But it probably wouldn’t really happen that way.
Sure, social media posts with political messages are more common these days,
and can be done right, but they usually go through rounds and rounds of approval from the client,
the PR team, and sometimes even the legal department. It’s also unlikely there would
be NO bad responses to such a polarizing topic, and considering how new and annoying
Emily was at the time, one of her managers or peers would probably have a word about it.
On the one hand, this is something perhaps marketing teams can learn from the show;
so many brilliant creative ideas die on the marketing floor because of “brand safety”… But
then again, it’s more likely that we’d have more Kendall Jenner Pepsi
moments than retweets from the French First Lady.
We see it again in season two — spoiler alert if you haven’t started it yet, but
I’ll just say — not all influencers are good influenCES. Anyone asking to post a photo
with an exclusive client product needs to be vetted and approved by the brand, and honestly,
you’re probably not going to be lugging around unreleased designer product in the first place.
Though I will say it’s a pretty realistic depiction of agency
life to get lots of client samples… I miss those.
Two: you probably shouldn’t date your clients
I mean… do I need to go any further? At one point, someone sends Emily lingerie… TO THE
OFFICE… and I’m not saying it never happens, especially in the startup world, but I don’t
think it’s necessarily… encouraged quite as much as the show makes it seem. They briefly discuss
“married clients” in season one episode two, only for it to be revealed that Silvie, Emily’s boss,
is the mistress of the married client in question. As the boss, she pretty much sets the tone and
expectation for client relations, and it just gets messier and messier from there on out.
Whatever, it’s TV — it’s supposed to be a bit of a fantasy so I won’t judge this part
too hard. But I personally try to adopt a “don’t shit where I eat” rule though (that’s
my husbands phrase, in case you wanna borrow it) and I’d guess most young, ambitious,
career-minded professionals wouldn’t want to risk the opportunity of a
lifetime for a night with a married client, DEFINITELY NOT for a CLIENT’S BOYFRIEND.
Lastly, and most interesting to me… her job feels kind of all over the place
One of the challenges with marketing roles is that they’re all defined a little bit differently
depending on the location of the job, the industry you’re serving, and the size of the company.
I think most social media managers would agree that… Emily really isn’t one. And to be fair,
they never call her that — or any really title as far as I can tell. She mentions being promised
the role of “senior brand manager” after her year in Paris, but the truth is, Emily sort
of straddles the line between PR gal, social media manager, and brand strategist throughout the show.
We see Emily pitching brand campaigns, meeting with clients, AND posting
(manually!) to brand accounts from her cell phone.
In my experience, I’ve seen social teams structured a little more like this:
There’s a strategist or brand manager, aka the brains behind the campaign. This person or team
will ideate social campaigns, and pitch them to clients. All I could find about Emily’s actual
“title” is that she was sent to Paris to “bring a set of American eyes and ears to Savoir”,
so I’m guessing she’d technically fall under a strategist kind of role.
There’s usually also an account manager, or someone who handles day to day requests and
interactions with clients. It seems like Emily picks up a lot of this work as well,
which is especially odd considering the language barrier. You’d think
there would be at least a junior assistant to help out with some of the quick requests.
And then there’s a social media manager who mostly sits at a computer all day scheduling posts,
responding to customer questions, and creating new content. Again, depending on the size of the team
or account, this person or team might also sometimes go on site to capture content,
but for the luxury clients that Emily deals with, I’d assume the agency would send a professional
photographer, not just a girl with her smartphone. Regardless of seniority, social media managers at
agencies are usually pretty territorial about who posts to brand accounts — and rightfully
so. The fact that Emily just posts randomly from her cell phone is a serious faux pas.
I’m not just here to bash though show though. Here’s the thing I think
all marketing teams *should* try to learn from the show:
Social needs to be involved upfront.
As I said, Emily is there in the room with the clients pitching ideas, sharing what she’s seen
online, and really being in the driver’s seat. In most of my previous jobs, social was always
the last to know about exciting new launches, events, or campaigns… which was really hard.
I don’t think social is EVERYTHING when it comes to marketing, but nowadays, it’s a lot.
I mean, just for one event, you have the social media ads driving to the registration page to
think about, social graphics for that ad, live coverage of the event, you have to draft
messages to have on hand for that live coverage AND get them approved, you might put together
influencer wish list and posting guide, perhaps pitch a retargeting campaign for attendees…
I mean, that’s a lot more than “queue up an email sequence” or “design a billboard”.
Today’s marketing really does come alive on social media and I think part of what prevents marketing
teams from giving it the respect it deserves is that social media teams are often made up of a
lot of younger people, many of them women. Emily really does a crap job of representing millennial
professionals — she’s got no decorum at all — but not all young professionals are like this
and they should be brought into the conversation a little more, I think. That said, I also hate
ageism and am a big believer that the youngest person in the room shouldn’t get the social media
job just because they’re young; anyone can learn about it, and be good at it — if they want to be.
Okay, those are my thoughts on Emily in Paris from a marketing lens — I want
to hear what you think. Did you watch? Will you watch? And do you feel like her
experience is anything like yours if you’re in marketing? Let me know in the comments,
I’m going to go finish up the last few episodes of season two, and I’ll see you next time!