Today’s consumer is raising their voice on social platforms and testing the limits of individual influence. They are empowered and enabled, and on a mission to matter. They’re no longer just complaining – they’re flexing social muscle to force brands to change. Whether an individual is campaigning for a cause, or on a quest for influence, or joining a rage-in on social media they can cause irreparable damage to a brand. We are in a brutal cultural moment when the good, bad and ugly are indistinguishable to a call-out culture that can seem to care very little for the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. Whether a brand has made an honest mistake or taken an ill-judged decision, social media enables and amplifies cycles of cruelty. To survive in the call-out culture world, brands need to think differently about how they react when they’re put under the spotlight, and how to make their brands less likely to be called out in the first place.