Why I Didn't Much Care for Gwyneth’s Viral Astronomer Ad
A buzzy campaign can go viral and still miss the point.
I know.
You liked the Astronomer ad with "temporary spokesperson" Gwyneth Paltrow.
So did the internet.
So did many commentators on my recent social media post, where I discussed the reputational merits of the ad.
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"Given the history of her ex I thought it was pretty funny and clever."
— @Slone (TikTok)
Did I like the ad? Sure. It was a good vehicle for Paltrow's tongue-in-cheek delivery.
Produced by Ryan Reynolds’ agency, Maximum Effort, it did exactly what it was built to do: go viral fast.
From a marketing effort, it was a win.
Currently, the ad has over 633,000 views on the Astronomer YouTube page. By comparison, the last Astronomer video on their YouTube channel, titled “The Future of Airflow Telemetry at Metyis,” sits at only 5.6K views. Not surprisingly, TikTok didn't quite take to the previous temporary spokesperson, Bolke de Bruin, speaking about workflow for data engineering.
The video before that? 1.8K views.
And before that? 827 views.
You know where I'm going here, right?
Investing in Hollywood-approved marketing boosted buzz quickly, but will it last long-term?
Not a chance.
Because clever marketing doesn’t clean up a credibility crisis. It may give a company tremendous reach over a 72-hour period. However, now that everyone has moved on to other stories (the American Eagle ad with Sydney Sweeney, for example), where does that leave Astronomer?
Quite literally, yesterday’s news.
It’s as if everyone left the company party. Now, Bolke de Bruin is alone with his telemetry-thingamajig, wondering where everybody went.
That's why I am not a fan of Astronomer’s play here.
As a crisis communication strategist, I couldn’t help but see through this attempt to capitalize on a crisis. I believe it was for the purpose of deflection, and perhaps a little ego thrown in on the side.
So yes, the ad got eyeballs. But here’s why I didn’t like it, and why it fails as a reputational strategy:
1. It Deflected From the Real Issue
Coldplay's "kiss cam" bit during their concerts triggered the zeitgeist moment for the company. However, lest we forget, it exposed a massive ethical lapse involving former Astronomer Chief Executive Officer Andy Byron. The public doesn't really know if Byron or his Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot, were officially separated from their spouses at the time of the concert, but that's not the point.
The fact that a CEO is hooking up with a CPO is. Not only is it a massive HR misstep, but it also opens the company up to legal and liability issues. It was an extremely likely violation of workplace policies.
It draws immediate scrutiny to leadership, ethics, HR policy, legal process, and the impact on families, reputation, investors, and internal company culture. It’s a dynamic that creates ethical and legal risk.
How did Astronomer leadership address the issue? They likely paid A LOT OF MONEY for an A-list marketing reset.
Yes, yes, I know. I’m out of step with the public on this one. That includes my own mother, and a listener who caught my appearance on NPR’s All Things Considered this week and went to the effort to email me to tell me I was a “fussbucket” for my take on the ad.
Ouch. But my thanks to the writer for supporting public radio.
I get the reach-out to Ryan Reynolds’ company as a too-good-to-miss opportunity to shift the conversation from a CEO engaging in a relationship with the company's head of human resources to the ex-wife of Chris Martin.
Not a surprise: no mention of the actual crisis. No accountability. Just a celebrity talking vaguely about “trust” and “team.” No shame. It didn’t belong in the ad.
However, the ad didn’t belong in this crisis either.
The company risked key stakeholder trust. They exposed a deeper problem inside the organization. Gwyneth didn’t touch that—fine. But they could have saved themselves a lot of problems, not to mention a massive ad spend, if they had spoken out the moment things started to go viral. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. More on that take, here.
2. It Exposed a Value System That Preferred Goop Over Accountability
The interim CEO leaned into the moment with a public statement celebrating their newfound fame. “A household name,” he said.
Then doubled down by hiring A-list celebrities to go viral again.
That’s using a marketing strategy to cover a crisis. The next time something happens at Astronomer? Even if it’s an internal issue that would normally never make a headline, Astronomer already has a perception problem.
I am reminded of that line in the film The American President, when Leo Solomon (played by John Mahoney) tells his newly hired lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (played by Annette Bening) that her relationship with President Andrew Bartlett (Michael Douglas at his best) is a potential liability to the cause:
“Politics is perception, and if things don't work out, the amount of time it'll take you to go from being a hired gun to a cocktail party joke can be clocked with an egg timer.”
If you’re leading through a crisis, a leader's job is to acknowledge harm, reestablish values, and speak directly to your key stakeholders. Don’t distract them with the guy from Deadpool.
3. It Turned a Serious Moment Into a Punchline
There’s a difference between using humor strategically and using it to avoid responsibility.
Obama’s birth certificate joke landed at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner because he had already addressed the issue directly. Using a clip from The Lion King was note-perfect—it acknowledged the absurdity of the "birther" conspiracy while undercutting it with humor.
But using humor to gloss over ethical and moral failures by senior leadership is a different story entirely. It signals avoidance, not accountability.
When companies try to meme their way out of misconduct, they send one message loud and clear: “We do not take this seriously.”
That’s the opposite of trust-building.
Final Thought
Gwyneth Paltrow and Ryan Reynolds. Not fans of either, but they had a job to do, and they did it. They also, as it turns out, could use a little glow from the publicity.
There’s a new biography out now.
There’s a wife sitting for a deposition tomorrow, July 31, 2025.
Timing, as always, is everything.
But if Astronomer thought a viral video was going to clean up a leadership failure, they misunderstood the assignment.
Marketing moves people.
Crisis management grounds them.
Both are important to a company, but when trust is on the line, you need the latter, not the former.
Want to hear the full breakdown? This week’s episode of The PR Breakdown dives deeper into what went wrong and what Astronomer should’ve done instead.
What do you think?
(My thanks to my supporting partner, Muck Rack, whose media research tools helped me dig into this story.)
I’m with you / did not see the value in this!
You nailed this Molly! Agree completely. The root issue is too serious, just to deflect. Let’s get an accountability statement with next steps from the interim CEO / Board before making a joke about it. Also, they chose to spend an (alleged) $2M on this video with ME rather than spend it “fixing” culture. Speaks volumes.