What Every Young Creative Marketer Can Learn From “Emily in Paris”
By: Pete Sena
Tags: Careers, Influencer Marketing, Social Media, Netflix, Gen Z

This year has been full of so many surprises, and most of them have been pretty horrendous. So like millions of others, my wife and I turn to Netflix for some escapism and fun. This brings me to one of the most delightful surprises all year: I’ve found some kinship with, and inspiration from one of the top streaming shows this season: Emily in Paris.

Now, I’m not here to critique the show itself, which has mixed reviews. It was a combination of nostalgia (my wife and I got engaged in Paris) and a low commitment (30-minute episodes) that got me to press play. But it was something about the main character, Emily, that kept me watching.

For the unanointed, Emily Cooper is a 20-something American who moves from Chicago to Paris for a social media strategy job at luxury goods marketing firm, Savoir. Since the show is by Sex in the City creator Darren Star, there’s plenty of aesthetic inspiration, from clothes to the actors and Paris itself, plus lots of soapy drama. None of that was the pull for me.

What intrigued me most is Emily’s curiosity, creativity, positivity, and perseverance. What she doesn’t know about France (and admittedly, it’s significant things like the language and customs), she makes up for with her enthusiasm for her work. When she arrives, she changes her Instagram from @EmilyCooper to @EmilyinParis (a real account for the show, which has 1.1 million followers — great marketing!), and the story unfolds from there.

And this is where I started looking past the stylized soap to find some substance that can fuel business success.

The Ingenuity of the Ingenue

I’m a big fan of the Zen concept of Shoshin or Beginner’s Mind. It’s a mindset that’s entirely free of preconceptions, which is an easier state to attain when you are, in fact, a beginner.

Early on in my career, I was faced with numerous challenges to overcome as I started building my profile as a coder and designer. Without a mentor or even a way to describe what I did for a living, I just followed my passion and gut. My goal was to create beautiful online experiences — something relatively novel in the early 2000s. For example, when my dad brought me in to redesign his company’s website, I worked my butt off to deliver the best possible design for their business.

There’s an old saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” I had no idea that would be a problem… but it was. When the site won awards, the corporate parent company freaked out — how could one of their satellite offices have a stronger web presence than they did?

That was bureaucracy in action, and I had no idea at the time how or why that existed. A couple of decades later, I get why it exists. And I actively seek to avoid it.

Back to my youth, and to Emily in Paris, where not knowing is a gift. What you do in that space is the dividing line between laziness and ambition, pencil-pushing and leadership. One of the best things about Emily is that she knows there are things she doesn’t know, but instead of paralyzing her, they motivate her. She asks questions of everyone and anyone: her patronizing boss, reluctant co-workers, and potential clients.

Through her curiosity, Emily finds connections. The unhappy perfumer who’s on the verge of firing Savoir? Emily turns a serendipitous meeting with a budding Ian Schrager-type hotelier into a fruitful new alliance for the scent creator — and an account-saving move.

My point is that the wheels of quick pivots can be greased by a little bit of naiveté and a lot of ingenuity. By considering how things might interrelate and taking action to make those connections, you can move the ball forward — and into your court.

The Business Benefits of Joie de Vivre

There’s another old saying (by Aristotle, actually): “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”

Emily’s antagonist is her Miranda Priestly-like (The Devil Wears Prada) boss, Sylvie, who embodies the projected superiority of the status quo. She repeatedly scoffs at Emily’s command of social media and punishes her for anything that may be perceived as a faux pas.

When I watch this fictionalized boss in action, I see one of the biggest threats to business growth: fear.

Sylvie wears her scowl and put-downs like a badge of honor. But the audience gets a glimpse of what’s underneath her chic armor: a woman who has lost accounts, lovers, and the spark that presumably got her to the top in the first place.

While there are many ageist clichés that I despise in this characterization, as the show wears on, you start to see the edges of the battle between wonder (Emily) and wisdom (Sylvie) blur. And it also becomes clear that it’s an allegory about the need for joy-fueled change agents to upend stale, embedded systems.

The most crucial change agent of all? Positivity. It’s on display in Emily, who, despite all she doesn’t know, plows forward. And it’s also in Sylvie, who, in a pivotal scene, stands up to a spoiled movie star whose shenanigans with a two-million-Euro watch nearly cost Savoir a literal small fortune.

This represents the two sides of positivity: a sunny outlook towards the world (Emily) and confidence that radiates from within (Sylvie). Both are a mindset, and both are equally important in having the resourcefulness and resilience necessary to rack up the small victories that add up to big business wins.

What’s Your Je Ne Sais Quois?

How Emily in Paris caught my eye has nothing to do with why it’s a hit with Gen Z and Millennial women in particular. Like it or hate (watch) it, the show has a certain indescribable allure that makes it irresistible.

And that brings me to my final point: a winning story is one that doesn’t dwell on successes or failures, but one that cycles through it all quickly. Emily’s character is gratingly earnest and sometimes a bit pompous (there’s a big riff in the show on ignorance vs. arrogance), but she’s also endearing, captivating, and smart. She embodies the double-entendre of “fresh” — it can mean new and different or insulting and smart-alecky.

So while I’m not endorsing pissing people off for a living, I am all for being your most authentic, curious, and creative self in every realm of your life. That will often break down the barriers between what you do for a living and how you live your life, and that’s a good thing. The optimist doesn’t compartmentalize work and pleasure but finds the connection between the two.

And that’s something I believe we should say oui to!

What shows and characters from your favorite binge-worthy shows resonate with you? I’m curious who’s your inner Emily, so let me know in the comments. PS: If you have an inner Emily, we are hiring!