Astronomer: a curious case of ‘collateral immunity’

Every now and then, a crisis hands creatives the rarest of briefs. Ellie Tuck, executive creative director and partner, FleishmanHillard New York, reflects on the Astronomer saga.

A scandal rooted in the CEO’s personal misjudgment, not a failure of operations, granted Astronomer an unusual thing in crisis PR: collateral immunity.

The company wasn’t accused of any corporate malpractice. It was guilty only by association, swept into virality because its business leaders were caught mid-embrace on a stadium screen. That gave it something most brands in crisis don’t get: permission to be funny.

Rather than retreat into damage control, Astronomer (eventually) leaned into it. Hiring Gwyneth Paltrow, of all people, worked precisely because the joke was around them, so to speak, not on them. But this tightrope walk only works in very specific circumstances. Let’s be clear: when a brand is complicit in its own crisis, then humour can read as dismissive or exploitative.

Still, the success of its rebuttal wasn’t just in the idea or the execution, both of which were sharp. The real muscle came from something more exclusive.

Who has the Hollywood pull to secure Gwyneth? Ryan Reynolds’s Maximum Effort, of course. Reynolds leveraging his star-studded Rolodex is a feat few agencies could match, no matter how good the pitch.

So, unless you’ve got an A-lister on retainer, maybe don’t count on replicating this exact playbook. But do take note: when a crisis strikes and your house is (mostly) in order, humour paired with the right partner can shift the narrative. 

Sometimes, the most powerful creative comes from knowing exactly who to call.