Bonjour, folks! We have returned from a weekend of binge-watching the latest Netflix hit — ‘Emily in Paris’, and yes, we do have some thoughts on how the series portrayed the job (and life) of the main lead, Emily Cooper (played by Lily Collins). Of course, these are just two cents of what we think (by we, we mean the author of this blog article) of the glamorous inaccuracies that made this show enjoyable, yet frustrating to watch. Here goes. Warning: spoilers ahead!

Rapid (Organic) Growth of Instagram Followers

In the series, Emily moved to Paris with 48 followers, and proceeded to gain hundreds (and thousands) of Instagram followers simply by posting her daily life in Paris which included some Boomerang posts and Instagram Stories. Since she mentioned that she would be in Paris for a year, and the show focused on her settling into the Parisian life, we’d assume that she gained that huge number of followers in a span of weeks… which unfortunately, rarely happens in real life 😢 Even for top notch Instagram influencers, a huge follower base comes from a consistent and regular posting over a long period (at least a year or so). For individuals with a huge surge of follower increment, it is often through a successful viral marketing strategy or being caught up in a public scandal — which requires a specific, targeted incident (or plan, in the perspective of a marketing campaign). Unfortunately for us, the rapid follower increment of Emily’s Instagram account is just a reel life occurrence.

Incremental Engagement Rate for Multiple Posts

When Emily’s boss, Sylvie, found issue with Emily’s Instagram account and demanded her to delete it, Emily and Mindy went on a last hurrah to commemorate the unfortunate occasion. While celebrating the existence of the Instagram account, Emily went on a multiple-posting adventure on the platform where we saw her snapping loads of Instagram Stories, pictures and even videos. Realistically speaking, multiple postings on Instagram usually leads to user fatigue, a scenario that your users start to lose interest in your content and therefore, resulting in an overall decrease in engagement. However in the case of Emily’s adventure, all her posts received an incremental, overwhelming number of likes — even when she posted multiple shots of the same location! Does this only happen in Paris, or…? We’d like that Parisian algorithm too, Instagram!

Super (Super) Understanding Clients

Probably one of the most overwhelming discrepancies we witnessed from Emily in Paris, is the incredible understanding and patience displayed by one of Savoir’s clients, French fashion designer Pierre Cadault. A series of events that took place based on Emily’s decision led to a humiliating publicity stunt that greatly affected Pierre Cadault. We would expect Pierre to go berserk and ultimately fire the agency (or Emily, in this case) but he did not. Instead, Emily was able to have a personal interaction with him and discuss the future of his fashion brand, in which Pierre was calm and understanding throughout the conversation. As a marketing agency that is fortunate to have worked with understanding clients, we are still in awe of the calmness displayed by Pierre in this episode. All agencies are aware that there are always consequences when a marketing stunt goes wrong, and for a client like Pierre to be this understanding is indeed a great, great blessing. Good for ya, Emily!

Emily & Marketing Ideas

We noticed how quickly Emily is able to come up with viral marketing ideas, that really stick. In the series, she is portrayed as a passionate, driven and quick-witted individual who really loves marketing. Through this depiction, she is also shown to be creative with her constant flow of ideas that usually come to her in a matter of seconds. It is indeed satisfying to watch when you know her marketing idea will be well-received by whichever client she is dealing with — but at the same time, we do know that possessing a good grasp of a client’s company profile requires research and understanding of its target audience (in short, many hours behind the scene to be so quick and creative to come up with ideas that clients will love!)

Perhaps this happens when you are exposed to an entirely new environment and creative juices just flow?

There would always be discrepancies between real and reel life and sometimes escaping from realities to focus on an interesting series/movie is indeed refreshing. ‘Emily in Paris’ may have distorted some realities when it comes to social media marketing, but it is still an engaging show, especially when some examples of what goes on behind the scenes in real life are shown. Besides showing some examples of social media marketing, there was also no mention of press releases, media monitoring and the PR works — but we all know a marketing agency needs an integrated approach to ensure success. Nonetheless, it has been an entertaining weekend binging on ‘Emily in Paris’!

Now that we have completed the first season, we are looking forward to Emily’s adventure in Paris in Season 2!

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All images are from Netflix’s ‘Emily in Paris’