Why Gwyneth’s Viral Ad Won’t Save Astronomer

In a totally unexpected twist to the Coldplay Kiss Cam scandal, Gwyneth Paltrow has now entered the chat. Astronomer hiring Ryan Reynolds Co. Maximum effort to create an ad that would capitalize on the newfound interest in the company. You may have seen the viral ad from Astronomer Gwyneth Paltrow, poised and polished, calmly explaining Apache Airflow orchestration while carefully avoiding any mention of the scandal that recently thrust the company into public view. Her delivery? Cool. Very goopy. The tone? Witty. The strategy? Pure PR deflection. Did it work? Ah, it depends. Welcome to the PR Breakdown. I'm your host Molly McPherson, and in this episode let's discuss how brands and celebrities try to rewrite their reputations using humor, other celebrities and distraction, and why that's becoming a trend and not a really good one. Let's get into it. From crisis to ad campaign, let's set this up. I do not want to linger on the Coldplay concert. That was two weeks ago. We've all seen it, we've all talked about it. Two executives, a Kiss Cam Chris Martin and an Internet pile on the former CEO of Astronomer, Andy Byron and human resources executive Kristin Cabot. Both have resigned. I have the word resigned in air quotes. If you could see me with my fingers in the air. The story made headlines everywhere, but that's now secondary to what everyone is talking about this week. The eh. Or as I call it, the stunt. And if you agree with me or not, I think we can both agree that we can call it the strategy. Enter Gwyneth Paltrow's now viral appearance as Astronomer's temporary spokesperson. That's in air quotes as well. Was cheeky, high gloss and it was PR engineered. She answered well. Okay, just take a listen.

Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days and they wanted me to answer the most common ones. Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow. There is still room available at our beyond analytics event in September. We will now be returning to what we do best, delivering game changing results for our customers. Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.

Important to note, she never once referenced the actual issue that landed the company in hot water. Not that we expected her to, but that omission was the point. The ad reframed the moment it repackaged a scandal into a clever marketing bump. But here's the truth. That ad was entirely unnecessary. If Astronomer had addressed the issue early with integrity and transparency, this kind of media spin wouldn't have been needed. For reference, last week's podcast episode I have a link in the show notes, I discuss exactly why the entire viral mishigas happened. And it's because they made a massive misstep by not addressing that fake CEO statement. That's what triggered the algorithm. That's why everybody was talking about it. There's also a number of social media posts of mine in TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Substack. You can check those out in the show notes as well. Now, here's something that I haven't said yet about this matter. We have two 50 somethings getting together. Married or not. I still don't think it's newsworthy that a CEO and the chief people officer maybe, maybe not, had an affair. That duck and cover at a Coldplay concert. Yeah, that's what made it newsworthy. Viral. Newsworthy. But it's still private. Chris Martin outing someone who looked like they're having an affair. Viral for public consumption, definitely. But what's going on with the two of them? Not necessarily. No one knows the status of Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot's relationship. Yes, according to press reports, they were both quote unquote married. But were they separated from their spouses? It's possible that one or both have already filed for divorce. This could have been a celebratory date. We may learn the truth later down the road. But it won't matter because their names are now forever associated with their story. Their names are mud. And here's the bottom line up front. I'm just not digging Astronomers crisis management strategy at all. Was there a problem with the CEO getting together with his chief people officer? Yeah, that's huge. On my girls weekend last week. And if you saw my social media posts, you saw me talk about it. We chit chatted a lot about this. And if you were following any of my lives on substack, you know that I got really close to to the inner circle. So I definitely know things that are not public. We had a very spirited conversation about this, but the one thing we all agree on is this. When you have the CEO and the head of HR together in a relationship, and it's a hidden relationship that creates a whole lot of problems for the company. Because anyone who was let go or reprimanded by Kristen Cabot, they now have a legal standing against Astronomer for a false firing or a false reprimand, whatever it is. So those two getting together absolutely caused the problem. That's the crisis. Not the fact that two people who work together came together and were outed by Chris Martin. That's not the issue. The crisis is That a CEO and a chief people officer were outed. That's the problem. Now let's move on to Astronomers mood using humor as a shield. That ad Maximum Effort, the agency behind the ad. And by the way, I just finished an interview with NPR for All Things Considered that aired on Monday. I flubbed Maximum Effort. I cannot tell you how much I struggled saying it and now it flows effortlessly out of my mouth. But it is more than a punchline factory because it was co founded by friend of the podcast. Not really Ryan Reynolds and a former president of a digital marketing company. But their company has built a reputation for this rapid response culturally timed campaigns. So its name is a nod to Ryan Reynolds character in Deadpool. So the strategy of the company, it's called fastvertising. They call it agile production that mirrors the pace of social media. I'm not a fan of Ryan Reynolds, but I'll give him credit for this concept. Now a lot of other companies have the same concept, but because it's Ryan Reynolds tied into his Hollywood Persona, his fame along with his wife's fame. You remember he had aviation gin. He made big money off of that. That company did the ad campaign. They did peloton parody on match.com. they also did the response to Chris Noth. Remember in Just like that, the TV show, the spinoff from Sex and the City when Chris Noth had a heart attack on the Peloton. Sorry if I'm spoiling that for you. Which by the way, it's just coming to my mind right now. I think I, I did. I met the person who worked for the agency that handled the Peloton when that whole thing happened and no one had any idea that that was coming down the pike. So maximum effort. They're the ones who could quickly turn things around. It's a successful company. We will give that to Ryan Reynolds. So this Gwyneths fits the playbook. It's swiftly produced, tone perfect, time just right. People liked it and I talked about it in a social media post. As I mentioned, my girlfriends and I were talking about it on our girls weekend to the Vineyard. We all agreed. Great ad. It definitely hit a note. And from the comments on my social media, most people liked it. I still stand by it though. It was not the right response for what Astronomer was dealing with. So the ad was well produced and what Gwyneth was doing fine, but it was pure PR deflection because first of all, as I said, none of it was necessary. Remember what I said in the beginning? None of it was necessary. We didn't even have to do that. Had Astronomer manage the internal problem quietly, transparently, and with leadership, the deflection wouldn't have been needed. But don't forget, that's the reason why we had this ad in the first place. Instead, we did get a campaign that was funny. I didn't think it was that funny, but I was not amused by it. But I'll still call it funny, if that makes sense. But it left all the accountability on the cutting room floor. So I get it. The public's amused by it. They're not outraged, they're not skeptical. They're just amused. So some people could say, hey, that's a win. Win. But for the people in my comments who said they didn't like it because it was a PR deflection and it wasn't working for them, brava. There is no shame to the people who liked it because it was designed to make you like it. But for my PR types, I'm glad that you could see right through it. Why Gwyneth? Why now? Well, there's timing here worth noting. Amy Odell's biography Gwyneth, the biography dropped yesterday, July 29th. A deeply reported, possibly unflattering look at Paltrow's life from the 90s Hollywood all the way to goop. Gwyneth Paltrow, whether you like her or not, she's polarizing. She's just one of those celebrities that is not universally well liked. For every person that likes her, I would argue there's like a handful of people who don't like her. We've already seen some of the leaks from the book come out already. It doesn't mean that Gwyneth Paltrow is going to have a massive negative backlash with this book, but it's going to remind people of why they don't like Gwyneth Paltrow because there's just other stories there. So there is no doubt in my mind that that Gwyneth Paltrow doing this ad, it's a reminder that she's in on the joke. Before the press cycle spins back up. The conscious, uncoupled Chris Martin, her ex husband, he has not said boo. This guy has received so much publicity around this entire thing, he overall, by far, is the winner. Chris Martin and Coldplay, by far their streams. Everything has been roses for Coldplay and Chris Martin and this. But Gwyneth, she's polarizing. It could help her, but it's also going to hurt her. Either way, she did control the narrative and that's not nothing but does PR deflection work in the short term? Yes. As I mentioned, based on my social media comments, people found the ad amusing. But amusing doesn't equal absolution. Let's just compare a couple examples. A few years ago, KFC UK came out with a campaign that was on Twitter. Not X, but it was Twitter. They decided to deflect that crisis with humor. They called their campaign a quote f Ck and quote bucket campaign. I have a link to the tweet in the show. Notes that worked. They got great press from that PR deflection. That is when PR deflection works. Another example, Barack Obama with the birth certificate controversy in 2011, at a White House correspondents dinner, Obama addressed the conspiracy theories about his birthplace by revealing a clip from Disney's the Lion King. That was a humorous turn and an event that really worships at the altar of humor from politicians. Also George W. Bush, another case of self deprecation. Bush often pokes fun at his own verbal gaffes, like mispronunciations, like placing every emphasis on the wrong syllable. These types of jokes divert attention from criticisms about his intellect. That's a PR crisis for Bush. His intellect being secondary in his presidential campaign. But when he makes fun of himself, he makes himself appear more approachable by defusing the harsher attacks. And people like that. But astronomers issue. It's a CEO involved with the head of hr. That's a power imbalance. That brings up ethical questions, potential legal implications. That's not something you joke your way out of. And no, there's no way that this ad is going to increase sales. Will it increase impressions? Will it increase name recognition? Absolutely. I was asked by, I was asked on the All Things Considered NPR interview, wouldn't you agree that everyone, that no one was familiar with Astronomer, now everyone is? Absolutely. And maybe it might get more people to show up at their beyond analytics event in September that Gwyneth Paltrow pushed in the ad. But long term credibility, That's a different conversation. Take new data from my new podcast partner, Muckrack. They have a study that shows that 27% of all citations across AI models are from journalistic content. That number climbs to 30% when looking at links that AI tools actively cite. When we think of press mentions, it's not just the Internet anymore, it's also AI. So when you're plugging into Perplexity or ChatGPT or even Muckrack, you work in PR and you want background information on this story about Astronomer, it's going to skim stories from AI so yes, the impressions will definitely be there. But does that equal sales? So what is being deflected here? A CEO involved with the person responsible for hiring and firing, a board that supported both, and a company trying to move on without offering accountability. And now a celebrity spokesperson is trying to smooth things over. Anyone who's ever been reprimanded by Kristin Cabot has every right to question that outcome now. And they might even do it legally. Here's another reason why I think Astronomers crisis PR strategy from the beginning was wrong. And that's the interim CEO Pete DeJoy. Now he stepped in as the interim CEO from Andy Byron, but Pete DeJoy was a co founder. Here's an excerpt from a statement that he posted on July 21st over the weekend I stepped into the role of interim CEO at Astronomer, a company that I proudly poured my entire professional life into helping build. And then he goes on to talk about what happened with the company over the past few years. Then he says the events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies, let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world ever encounter. The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team, and while I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name. At Astronomer, we have never shied away from challenges. A near decade of building this business has tested us time and time again and each time we've emerged stronger. Couple things to point out in there. Astronomer has been around for 10 years. Did you know about astronomer before 10 days ago? No. The fact that they're mentioning the event of the past few days, receiving a level of media attention that few companies, let alone startups, ever have. Next mentioning that Astronomer is now a household name. I think there is a level of Pete Dejoy taking joy out of what happening with the company in this statement. There is nothing about what happened there, the breakdown that happened there, the ethical breakdown that happened there. They're trying to gloss over it and it's something that can't be forgotten. The statement said Astronomer is now a household name. True. But now for the reasons a CEO or an interim CEO should want, I had to look at his background because I work with a lot of CEOs in crisis and I can usually tell right off the bat what their background is. And I nailed it on this one. I thought as soon as I look up this guy, I know the background is going to be from one side of the brain. He went to Bowdoin great school. He went to Bowdoin. Great school. He has degrees in chemistry, in physics. That makes him a great person for chemistry and physics and for starting a company 10 years ago. He's clearly brilliant, but that doesn't necessarily make him the right person to manage reputation. PR isn't about iq. It's about eq. It's about understanding culture. It's about understanding reputation. And he may not have written the entire playbook about hiring maximum effort, about hiring Gwyneth Paltrow, about not putting out any type of release to quash the fake CEO posts that went out there. But if he did or not, he certainly approved it. Or someone on the board did and it shows. This was a misstep from the beginning. They were using just logic where leadership required empathy. Yes, it's true. Everyone has heard about Astronomer. But would you invest in a company whose crisis plan rests on Ryan Reynolds and a punchline? I wouldn't. Oh, you think I forgot to mention Ryan Reynolds? This is a podcast about PR deflection. Why wouldn't I mention Ryan Reynolds? Because maximum effort made maximum effort to make sure that everyone knew that they were behind this viral ad. I found it on X because I was following breadcrumbs. And when I landed there, I noticed one. I haven't spent any time on X because I have so many notifications on X. So many people have been trying to reach me on X. But this is where I saw their post and I posted this Instagram and TikTok and Substack as well. This is what it said. Thank you for your interest in Maximum effort at Astro, Mario. That's the X account for Astronomer. We'll now get back to what we do best. Motion pictures with Hugh Jackman, Faster Vising and Wrexham Football. So all these plugs, everything that's Ryan Reynolds affiliated will leave Data, Workflow, Automation too. And then they. They strike out Gwyneth Pal, you know, PA Astronomer. And then it's a link to the ad that is classic Ryan Reynolds wit. He inserted himself in the story because why wouldn't he? Because he's a part of a massive PR crisis. And that is the it ends with US PR crisis that his wife Blake Lively is stuck in the middle of along with him. And I think it's all because of Ryan Reynolds in the first place. And that thing goes on and on. A lot of people have not forgotten about it. He does want people to forget about it, but he wants the Internet to forget about it as well, because these things still have a way of pushing down other stories. This kind of quippy humor is very Ryan Reynolds, very Gwyneth Paltrow, and that's why they both did it. So in the short term, does it work? Sure. I get it. I'm not going to shame anyone who thinks it's great. I'm with you. I get it. But for my PR types, the people in the comments who kind of can see through the efforts here and what they're doing, that's what I pay attention to. So what this means for leaders watching this whole thing play out one Humor can soften a blow, but it won't rebuild trust. 2 faster vising works until it doesn't. It's fast. It comes on fast, but it goes away just as fast. Faster vising works, but it goes away as easy as it comes. And three when public trust erodes, Clever isn't enough. So if you're a leader in a crisis or you are counseling a leadership in a crisis, the public does not want entertainment. They want truth. They want responsibility. So for anyone who works in strategy or has the ear of someone in strategy, use this story as a case study. If you're under pressure, ask yourself who needs to be heard? Not who can we hire to distract. Because clever isn't clean and distraction isn't a strategy. That's all for this week. On the podcast you can find a lot of my content about this topic if you need to use it in in the future. Definitely. Check out the show notes for all the links and my thanks to my podcast partner, Muckrack. It is the PR platform that I use to find all the links to all the stories and all the journalists talking about these trending stories. Thanks to them, I could give the story to you in a podcast. That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.