The Emily in Paris Effect
How Fiction Sells a City and a Lifestyle
In October 2020, Netflix released what would later become one of their biggest shows (over 58 million viewers for the first season alone), Emily In Paris. The concept? Show the dream life of an American girl working in luxury marketing in the heart of Paris. The idea itself is already attractive enough for their audience, women in their 20s who grew up watching movies like Devil Wears Prada and TV shows like Gossip Girl and Sex and the City and fell in love with fashion, sophistication and glamour. Add these scenarios with the magic of Paris and you have a success in your hands.
The city as a brand: We don’t just watch a show, we imagine a life
In some TV shows, the place where the magic happens becomes almost as important as the characters and the story themselves. Paris in Emily in Paris, New York in Sex and the City, California in The OC and the Upper East Side in Gossip Girl are not simply backdrops for their dramas: they are presented as a living, breathing part of the story with distinct identities, aspirations and promises. Almost as if it participates in the development of the narrative, like maybe in a different city, the characters’ lives would’ve been completely different (and boring).
So, through carefully selected locations, restaurants, cafes, bars, apartments, parks and scenes, these productions turn cities and neighborhoods into recognizable brands. In this way, their influence can be so powerful: viewers may begin to associate a destination not only with its typical local tourist sights, but also with the glamorous lifestyle they have seen portrayed there. This desire to visit a city can therefore be about more than simple, boring tourism; for this audience, it is about experiencing, even if so very briefly, the version of life that fiction has made so desirable.
After an episode ends, we all rush to social media to look up what she was wearing, where she was, and what the brand mentioned in the show is all about.
Paris is already known for its strong global identity associated with romance, luxury, fashion, food, glamour and sophistication. What we see in the show reinforces these associations while packaging them for a contemporary international audience. While Emily suffers from her bad French, we see her living her best life, working for big brands, dating French boys, eating her croissants and attending glamorous events, always with the sparkling Eiffel Tower in the backdrop. What does the audience see when they see her? They imagine themselves living this magical life.
This is where the magic of the shows begins: imagine yourself moving to Paris, working in a brand new job close to one of the most important museums of the world, living in a charming apartment in a Haussmannian building, spending your morning buying a croissant and a coffee from the local bakery, buying your bouquets in a typical Parisian flower shop and wearing the most iconic outfits, designer if possible. Now, who wouldn’t want to live these everyday experiences that are just so effortlessly cinematic?
An important part of understanding the appeal is knowing that most viewers don’t even care if that is realistic or not. TV consumption is also a way of escapism. And that is the whole point of the show, they want to romanticize as much as possible, they know their audience isn’t looking for suffering, they are looking for an escape from reality. That’s also why distinction matters: we may recognize the exaggeration while still wanting the lifestyle it represents.
From viewers to tourists
One of the coolest experiences for the fans out there when coming to Paris is definitely visiting the famous spots we see on the show. The main place is her apartment, which is located in the 5eme arrondissement in Paris, in the Place de l’Estrapade, in the heart of Paris right beside the beautiful Pantheon. If you go there you find several fans taking photos in the iconic fountain in front of the building’s door and imagining what it would be like living there. And it doesn’t stop there, just on the other side of the square you find another famous spot for Emily: Gabriel’s restaurant. Fans sit in front of it and take their photos in the iconic red facade. The show gives viewers an iconic typical Emily itinerary and a reason to visit particular places.
Another nice filming location to visit is where the magic happens: Agence Grateau, the marketing company where Emily works alongside some other equally interesting characters. The agency is located in the building on top of the Galerie Patrick Fourtin, and it’s very close to the Palais Royal and its garden, which is also a very common shooting location in the series.
But the tourism for the fans doesn’t end there: the show explores so many more places like Montmartre, Canal Saint-Martin, Pont Alexandre III, Palais Garnier, Luxembourg Garden, le Marais, etc.
The lifestyle is the product
The desire of living Emily’s lifestyle goes beyond the place she frequents or the clothes she wears. It is about what these things represent. A beautiful apartment can symbolize independence, a stylish outfit can express her confidence and a trendy cool restaurant can become part of the image we want to project and the type of people we want to meet and be. Sometimes, what we want is not simply the product itself, but the version of ourselves we imagine having it.
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This idea is closely related to aspirational consumption, a concept used to understand how people connect products and experiences to the lifestyle, identity or social status they hope to achieve someday. The new generation are young and cosmopolitan, they are aiming for success, exclusivity and opportunities that match the lifestyle they imagine for the future. What the audience sees on screen can contribute to material aspirations and shape the perception of desirable ways of living.
This is also where the relationship between entertainment and marketing becomes particularly interesting. In Emily in Paris, fictional companies such as JVMA, Marcello Muratori and Pierre Caudalt evoke the world of major luxury brands, while real brands appear within the story itself. For example, Baccarat, Intimissimi, Dolce and Gabbana and Fendi were featured in other seasons, helping connect the fictional world of the series with real businesses. This creates an interesting dynamic: a brand can gain from being part of the story without the entire narrative becoming a clear advertisement. When a product fits naturally into a character’s life, it can become associated with that character’s personality, success or social environment.
And, of course, the experience doesn’t end when the episode is over. Social media makes it easier for viewers to turn what they have seen into something they can recreate in real life. They can search for an outfit, discover a café, save a location on Google Maps or look for products similar to those shown on screen. Especially through TikTok, where travel content often turns places seen on screen into destinations people want to experience for themselves. Search for Paris on the app and you will find tons of videos featuring aesthetic cafés, charming streets, hidden restaurants and itineraries inspired by Emily in Paris. Influencers show viewers where to take the perfect picture, what to order and how to recreate a little piece of Emily’s lifestyle during their own trip. Also, since the show aired, 38% of tourists cited Emily in Paris as one of their motivations for visiting the French capital.
This shows how social media acts as a bridge between fiction and reality, helping transform the desire to live like the character into travel plans, locations and experiences worth sharing online.
The show’s positive impact on France’s international image was so significant that even the country’s President, Emmanuel Macron, stated that Emily in Paris is “super positive in terms of attractiveness for the country”.
For brands, this represents an opportunity to reach audiences through the worlds they already love, rather than relying exclusively on traditional advertising. It has already been proven that being on the screen of this show can help these brands gain even more visibility, be on the shopping list of the viewers and boost actual sales. The show’s second season was estimated to have generated approximately $63 million in Media Impact Value, largely thanks to the outfits featured in the series and their subsequent virality across social media.
The broader point is that fiction can help shape what we dream, what catches our attention and what we begin to associate with the life we would like to have.
The gap between fiction and reality
Of course, not everyone is charmed by the Paris we see in Emily in Paris. Since its release, the series has been criticized by French journalists and viewers for relying on typical clichés and stereotypes, and presenting a rather caricatural image of both Paris and its people. From the perfectly instagramable places, the “rude” staff, the flexible working hours, to the glamorous social life and the stereotypical French characters, the city sometimes feels more like a postcard than a real place. Some viewers point out that the capital of their country feels more like a vision disconnected from reality and an American deformation of Paris.
And it is quite easy to understand why. Living in Paris also means dealing with overcrowded public transportation, expensive apartments and cost of living, and all the ordinary frustrations that rarely make it into Emily’s glamorous world. The TV show gives us the beautiful cafés and charming squares, but not necessarily the daily real life or the struggle to find an affordable flat. A part of the audience even said it shows Paris as an amusement park for American tourists and that the city had become more like a fantasy than a convincing representation of the everyday life.
But in my view, that’s perhaps also the point. Emily in Paris is supposed to be a comedy and a romance, not a real life documentary, and its goal is not to provide a perfectly accurate portrait of the French society. Fiction has always relied on exaggeration, romanticization and also a little bit of magic to create fantasies audiences want to enter. We can recognize the clichés, laugh at the unrealistic situations and still enjoy the fantasy. After all, the question is not if the Paris of Emily in Paris is entirely real, but why this version of the city remains so appealing to people around the world. And that brings us back to the central idea: sometimes, what makes a fictional world powerful is not its accuracy, but the life it makes us imagine, and honestly, for me, Paris in real life is as magical as fiction portrays it to be.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminating the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
