The news program I was watching announced the move by Astronomer to hire Gwyneth Paltrow to run their “damage control” campaign. The chuckling newscasters called it “brilliant.” In the days after, I had many friends also remark that it was “brilliant.” I am quite sure that in the broader communications and PR space, they are all also hailing it as “brilliant.” I mean, wow, hire the former wife of the band leader who outed your CEO and PR head’s faithless romance. Get them talking about something else.
Personally, I don’t see this move with the same exultation. Yes, it’s swagger smart. Yes, it’s somewhat unusual. But brilliant? I think not. I see it as just the next logical thing to do in the dirty, neglected fishbowl that is social media. Clean off a little more of the green slime growing on the inside of the tank. Add a more colorful fish. Lay in a fresh bed of gravel. Above all, when weird happens, add more weird. But let’s be clear. It’s not disruptive. It’s not revolutionary. It’s simply novelty compliance. It’s the natural evolution of a hallucinated digital environment and really doesn’t take a whole bunch of smarts to figure out. It’s more like teaching a monkey to catch a penny. Any one of us could have devised this plan because we are living in the fishbowl, whether we know it or not.
You know what could have been brilliant? What if CEO and HR head simply stayed in their hug? They could have let it run the 2 seconds the give you and never have been found out. They could have stayed in the car after it crashed and waited for the tow truck, that always takes 2 hours or so. Everyone would have gone home by then.
Since when do we care about the character of our public or private leaders anyway? Who cares about these two? I certainly don’t and my guess is that you don’t either, really. They are just something to talk about, and next up, a PR effort to call brilliant. Meanwhile, the car wreck has never been moved off of the highway. It’s sitting there, still smoking from under the hood while a fading gen-x celeb leans on the fender trying to sell it as “used, but runs well.” And the underling who basically shines their shoes gets the ax. What did she do wrong except put the car in drive under their direction? I’m anxious to see how Paltrow spins the ensuing 30 million dollar lawsuit claiming a toxic workplace culture and revenge. Good luck with that. Gonna need some “extra brilliance” there, one might say.
Forget brilliance, I want to talk about intelligence. That’s what seems to missing here. And you know what could have been intelligent? For them: How about not taking your extramarital affair to a public concert. For us: How about letting it pass as something not worth our time. For Astronomer: How about doing damage control that repairs the internal damage that caused the wreck rather than just giving a new paint job and firing the valet? I think maybe what we all need is more intelligence, less brilliance.
Brilliant writing! I loved this piece.