Don’t get mad, just sing. When the disembodied voice on BT’s complaint line bumps you from one call centre to another; when the RMT union ruins your day with another pointless Tube strike; when your insurance company turns a minor burglary into a six-month paper chase, blind rage can take over — and then the buggers have won.

Better to quell the fury and let the anger simmer gently, before letting rip with something that is both delicious and malicious. Dave Carroll waited almost a year before composing United Breaks Guitars, with the accompanying viral video, which was seen by almost 3.5million people. The Canadian country and western singer has not served up revenge cold on a platter but on a global platform. It is an object lesson to big companies and their corporate flunkeys that they scorn the complaints of customers at their peril.

No longer isolated and impotent, Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells can vent his spleen not just in green ink covering both sides of the paper but via fibre-optic cables that reach every corner of the planet.

Consider the complaint by Oliver Beale, an advertising executive who composed a six-page letter to Sir Richard Branson after “a culinary journey of hell” on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Mumbai.

His description of the appalling mess served up in little trays — “It’s your hamster, Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing,” — was seen, e-mailed and enjoyed by millions.

Corporate character assassination is not new. The film-makers Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore made careers targeting large companies with aggressive and partisan documentaries, laced with satire. Moore achieved fame in 1989 for his film Roger & Me, an attack on General Motors and Roger Smith, then its chairman, over a decision to move factories from Michigan to Mexico.

Super Size Me, about Spurlock’s attempt to live on nothing but McDonald’s burgers, fries and shakes for 30 days, received an Academy Award.

But campaigning film-makers don’t deliver the quick punch in the corporate solar plexus that a Beale or a Carroll can achieve in seconds on the internet. For companies, the dilemma is how to respond and United Airlines, predictably, failed with its late and grudging offer of compensation and free flights.

My suggestion is that United Airlines should sing for absolution. A company so large could surely rustle up a staff choir to respond on YouTube with a melodious apology. But that would require courage and a sense of humour, so it probably won’t.

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