Screengrab from a video showing Gwyneth Paltrow introducing herself as a temporary spokesperson for Astronomer.
Credit: X/@astronomerio
In an unorthodox public relations move, data orchestration company Astronomer has appointed Hollywood actor Gwyneth Paltrow as its temporary spokesperson—a direct response to the viral "Kiss Cam" incident involving its leadership at a Coldplay concert.
The choice of Paltrow seems to be a deliberately sharp-edged tactic, given her famous past marriage to Coldplay's frontman, Chris Martin, adding a layer of viral irony to the situation.
The move, which has been labelled 'savage' online, is widely being seen as a witty strategy to navigate the fallout.
The scandal in question erupted after the 'Kiss Cam' at a Coldplay concert shone caught the company's CEO Andy Byron and head of HR Kristin Cabot in an intimate moment, despite both being married.
Although the two ducked out of view almost immediately, it was already too late, with the incident sparking a corporate crisis for Astronomer and a plethora of memes on the internet.
While the company has already accepted the resignations of both Byron and Cabot, and released statements affirming their commitment to their own values and culture and the need for accountable leadership, the scandal is far from fading from memory.
Now, rather than issuing more standard corporate statement, Astronomer has taken an unorthodox route by appointing Paltrow, a renowned actor.
In the video, Paltrow introduces herself, saying, "I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300+ employees at Astronomer."
"Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones," Paltrow continues, building anticipation for some answers regarding the scandal.
The video then transitions with a question—'OMG! What the actual f...'—appearing on screen before abruptly cutting to Paltrow again.
Despite the question, Paltrow, with a straight face, dodges the scandal entirely, focusing on Astronomer's data operations.
"Yes! Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data, ML and AI pipelines at scale...
"We've been thrilled that so many people have a new found interest in data workflow automation," Paltrow continued, making an oblique reference to the sudden increase in interest in Astronomer, as a result of the scandal.
"We will now be returning to what we do best...delivering game-changing results for our customers," Paltrow says on behalf of Astronomer, before concluding, "Thank you for your interest in Astronomer".
The cheeky move may help the B2B tech firm—the commercial developer behind the serious open-source platform Apache Airflow—to deflect from a potentially damaging incident. By leaning into the specifics of the situation with a celebrity-themed joke, Astronomer may just manage to reframe the public narrative entirely on its own terms.