Did Astronomer's Gwyneth Paltrow stunt work?

This article was first published in Mumbrella

Photo courtesy of Euronews.com

Our Founder and CEO, Leilani Abels shared her opinion with Mumbrella on the recent stunt from tech company Astronomer, in the wake of their Coldplay Kiss-Cam scandal.

Much has been debated on crisis management regarding Astronomer, but it is the internal and external communications strategy moving forward that will ensure the brand’s reputation recovery, shifting the latest ‘spokesperson’ move by Maximum Effort and Astronomer from gimmick to genius.

The genius is not in the creative ideation and or the stunt, choosing Chris Martin’s ex-wife to be Astronomer’s temporary spokesperson. The genius is in the female voice of empowerment that Astronomer has inadvertently leaned into when appointing Gwyneth Paltrow.

Paltrow has 8.4 million Instagram followers and her wellness e-commerce business Goop attracts almost one million unique visitors per month. Her audience across platforms is 75% female, Gen X, affluent, many are single and interested in holistic health, design and lifestyle. The last thing Astronomer can afford to do is further humiliate the victims of this story, in particular the wife of the former CEO, and although Astronomer continues to walk a tightrope with brand reputation management, they have positively galvanised a very powerful audience — women.

The ultimate win in influencer relations/talent ambassadorship is a genuine win-win partnership so what’s also unique in the spokesperson choice, is Paltrow’s own motivation. She does not need fame or fortune, so what’s in it for her? She runs an e-commerce tech company that is Goop. The educational and entertaining content piece has given her own brand and Goop an injection of cultural currency that money can’t buy.

In addition, she’s turned the spotlight on herself with tech investors and VCs globally. Cultural relevance, data and technology credibility is what matters to her, not the dollar figure on the contract from Maximum Effort and Astronomer.

Astronomer has just written the playbook in influencer engagement. Let’s hope that its current marketing hype has not meant that a broader communications strategy including internal communications, has been forgotten.

The genuine opportunity is to leverage the spokesperson for co-worker engagement and advocacy, turning employee angst into pride and allowing for a much needed culture reset. Given the values of Astronomer remain under question, it is a true test to their communications capability.

Let’s see how genuine and strategic their approach really is.