Tech company Astronomer is staging a surprise return from a viral scandal that involved two of its senior executives, calling on actress Gwyneth Paltrow to help turn the light around.
Paltrow, married to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin for 13 years, announced on Friday through social media that she has been recruited as a "very temporary" company spokeswoman. Her hiring comes after an uncomfortable public moment gained widespread attention earlier this month.
The play for drama started when Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and HR executive Kristin Cabot were caught in a cozy moment in a KissCam at a Coldplay concert. While the band performed, Martin invited the cameras to sweep across the audience, settling on Byron and Cabot, who were embracing and quickly trying to pull their faces away. Martin teased from the stage, "Either they're having an affair or they're just shy."
The video soon spread on the web, causing a chain of memes, parodies, and rumor. Initially, the identities of the couple were not clear, but after their identities were confirmed by the company, both Byron and Cabot resigned from their jobs.
In a brief promotional clip, Paltrow sidestepped mentioning the scandal. Rather, she humorously alluded to the company's recent fame:
"Astronomer has received lots of questions over the past several days, and they asked me to address most frequently asked ones," she added with a grin. "We've been pleased that so many individuals have a new-found interest in data workflow automation."
She ended the video by reiterating the company's mission: "We will now be going back to what we do best delivering game-changing results for our customers."
Though the incident generated negative publicity, it also surprisingly spiked Coldplay's streaming numbers, which were said to increase by 20% in the days after the viral video, as per industry analysis firm Luminate.
With the visit of Paltrow, Astronomer appears to be adopting a lighter tone towards crisis management, trying to put the KissCam fiasco behind and shift attention back on its tech mission.
