I wonder how many Taylor guitars United Airlines would give to Dave Carroll now that his scathing music video blasting the airline has been viewed 1.4+ million times on YouTube (as of this writing). What’s more, I wonder the level of regret UA has now that the popularity of the playfully acidic video has hit traditional media including big city papers and the major cable news channels.

A nice Taylor costs about $2,500. If I was in charge of customer service at United, I think replacing the guitar broken by baggage handlers with a nice collection of about a dozen new Taylors would be a nice gesture today. I’m sure they could have gotten off much easier had they admitted their apparent mistake and just replaced Mr. Carroll’s Taylor.

Too late.

United Airlines might have been able to ignore the voice of a single unhappy customer in the past. But businesses had better wake up to the fact that the voice of that single customer can now reach millions of potential customers via YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook and other social media channels. And when traditional news media gets wind of that groundswell, look out.

So what can businesses do? Is it enough to just treat customers as if they matter? Or do all businesses need to engage in brand monitoring via social media? Will online brand monitoring ever become as important as market research Or is it already?

What would you do if Hubbard Broadcasting abruptly fired the radio personality you’ve depended on to voice your ads for over 15 years? On top of that, what if they dropped the ax in the middle the busiest part of your media calendar, when your stores count on those ads to drive traffic most?

For R. F. Moeller Jewelers, the answer was easy. R. F. Moeller immediately pulled all their ads from KSTP (AM1500), even knowing that their stores do 20% of the year’s business in the two weeks surrounding the holidays. That’s a blow to the station. Over the years, R. F. Moeller estimated their total spend in the millions, with show host T. D. Mischke voicing every spot.

What does this have to do with online marketing? Everything.

R. F. Moeller turned to viral online marketing to continue their relationship with Mischke and his loyal listeners. They started with this hilarious and heart-touching viral video.

Moeller first released the video on YouTube where it’s been viewed over 7,100 times. I first saw it on another blog. “The Atlantic” has featured it, and now it’s here. I’m sure it’s many other places, too. And countless others reference the story on news sites and blogs.

Does this validate viral vehicles such as YouTube as strategic alternatives to broadcast media? Well, it worked on me. I was a fan of Tommy Mischke’s show, and after seeing the video, I’ll be a loyal R. F. Moeller customer for life. R. F. Moeller didn’t pay me a thing to pass it along to you. And I hope you pass it along to someone else. That’s viral online marketing at its best.

Check them out at: www.rfmoeller.com