Leveraging Gwyneth Paltrow to Refresh Company Image
Global Spotlight on Humor and Strategy Amid Crisis
The American artificial intelligence (AI) startup Astronomer, which recently attracted global attention due to an "affair scandal" at a Coldplay concert, is once again in the spotlight. This time, the company is receiving an explosive response in the global online space for its witty marketing strategy that has turned a crisis into an opportunity.
US artificial intelligence (AI) startup Astronomer has appointed actress Gwyneth Paltrow, the ex-wife of Coldplay's lead vocalist Chris Martin, as its interim spokesperson and promotional model.
On July 26 (local time), Astronomer announced via its official social networking service (SNS) accounts that Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow has been selected as the company's interim spokesperson and promotional model. Paltrow is the former spouse of Chris Martin, the vocalist of the British band Coldplay, and she is also indirectly connected to individuals involved in the recent controversy.
In the released video, Paltrow begins by saying, "From now on, I will speak on behalf of Astronomer's more than 300 employees." She continued, "Over the past few days, the company has received a flood of questions, and I will answer the most frequently asked ones. For example, questions like 'What kind of company is this, anyway?'" she said with wit.
An affair was exposed involving the CEO and CPO of a US IT company during a Coldplay concert. TikTok capture.
She introduced Astronomer as "a platform optimized for operating Apache Airflow," and explained, "It enables the efficient integration of large-scale data, machine learning, and AI-based workflows." She added, "I'm glad that so many people have suddenly become interested in data pipelines."
At the end of the video, she mentioned, "Some have asked how the company's PR team could pull off something like this, but now we're planning to return to our main business," and added, "We are still accepting registrations for our company event taking place this September."
The appearance of Gwyneth Paltrow instantly set the internet abuzz. International netizens praised the move, saying, "Using an ex-wife as a promotional model is both shocking and brilliant," "A textbook example of crisis management by turning controversy into humor," and "A move that will go down in PR history."
Astronomer, founded in New York in 2018, is a company specializing in data operations. Until recently, it was not widely known outside its industry. However, on July 16, the company drew worldwide attention when its executives became embroiled in an affair scandal during Coldplay's concert in Boston, USA.
At the time, the concert's big screen captured CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Christine Cabot hugging each other. When the camera focused on them, they suddenly distanced themselves and appeared flustered, a scene that was broadcast live. Watching this, Chris Martin joked, "Either they're dating or extremely shy," and the video quickly went viral.
The scene spread rapidly on SNS, especially TikTok, amassing over 70 million views. As the controversy grew, the company launched an official investigation. CEO Byron went on leave, and co-founder Pete Dziwok was appointed as interim CEO. Subsequently, internal ethical issues surfaced, leading to calls for Byron's dismissal, and he ultimately resigned voluntarily.
The company stated, "We will use this incident as an opportunity to strengthen corporate ethics and focus on our core technology and services."
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