How Astronomer Turned Lemons into Lemon Meringue

By Shlomo Maital  

        What do you do, when your struggling startup is hit with a public relations catastrophe?  

         You turn lemons into lemon meringue pie – with creativity and with humor.

         Alisha Gupta, reporting in the New York Times, noted how “on Friday, Astronomer — the technology company whose married chief executive was caught on video at a Coldplay concert canoodling with a human resources executive at the firm who is not his wife — capitalized on the heightened attention when it released a video response featuring Ms. Paltrow as a “temporary spokesperson.”

         The CEO resigned, and later, so did the female HR chief executive.  Bad publicity, right?

         Astronomer sought out a known and loved actor  Gwyneth Paltrow, ex-wife of Coldplay front man Chris Martin.  

          In her video, she states: “Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days and they wanted me to answer the most common ones,” Ms. Paltrow says directly to camera in a video posted on Astronomer’s social channels.

         The first question then appears onscreen: “OMG! What the actual f&^%”

        “Yes!” she responds, a hint of knowing and exasperation in her voice. “Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow.” She adds: “We’ve been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.”

         Gupta notes:  “Viewers were given a peek at what Astronomer actually does, a move that was quite clever, I must say,” said Michel Pham, a business professor and marketing strategy expert at Columbia Business School. For companies that abruptly find themselves embroiled in scandal, he explained, using humor to capitalize on the spotlight requires a deft touch.”  It does not always work. It can backfire – treating serious issues as amusing.

         But many many people now know about little Astronomer, who previously had no clue.  Astronomer turned lemons into lemon meringue pie.

         Humor is a powerful weapon for messaging.  Especially satirical humor. 

         Take, for instance, Tom Lehrer, the Jewish math prodigy whose musical satire amused – and strongly attacked the negative trends in US politics and society.  He has passed away, age 97.  Consider his “national brotherhood week” song – so relevant today, when MAGA vengeance and hatred led by Trump dominates the news daily.

                “Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics, And the Catholics hate the Protestants!  And the Hindus hate the Muslims. And everybody hates the Jews!”  sang Lehrer, himself Jewish.  “Be nice to people who are inferior to you, it’s only for a week, so have no fear, Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year!”

                If only it lasted all year…or forever.  Rest in peace, Tom Lehrer. 

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