My brother just showed me to "an interesting news story" - it really is.
Mr. Syed won't be the first person to use advertising space to get eyeballs on a private grievance (though you can argue this one has public appeal too), but before the dawn of promoted messages on social media this method of being heard cost serious money; I think the decreasing cost and general availability of releasing weighty negative advertisements is a serious potential problem.
The parallel Ms Wakefield draws with David & Goliath in her article is apt - Goliath isn't tech-savvy enough to use a targeted weapon like David and the damage is done before Goliath gets a chance to respond. My concern arises when I imagine a world where self-righteous Davids attack Goliaths in preference to more amiable methods of solving the problem; Goliaths will find this very difficult to defend against, as every person - David or otherwise - who they raise a shield at is a potential customer seeing a less compelling service.
Mr. Syed tells the BBC that he turned to promoted tweets after being frustrated at the lack of a suitable response from the usual complaint channels, this I applaud. It's clever, targeted and doesn't appear (too?) vindictive (we've all been down the poor customer service route with a Goliath before) so here's to hoping we, as Davids with a newly publicised anti-Goliath weapon, can keep ourselves from becoming too aggressive.