The AA has been on the driver’s side since 1905. While we have a range of businesses, such as driving school and insurance, a long heritage of brilliant marketing has made the AA brand synonymous with the biggest one: breakdown recovery, where it is the most famous and popular brand in the category.

But in 2022, there was trouble under the bonnet. Roadside (as we call our breakdown offer) is 83% of our revenue. And a highly commoditized market reliant on price promotions was threatening premium-priced services like us – especially as our communications weren’t making Roadside feel different or better value relative to competitors. Awareness, share and consideration measures were flat. And although the brand had strengths in warmth and trust, it was seen as old-fashioned, especially amongst younger audiences.*

The film comprises humorous vignettes that delve into customer-centric narratives, pushing them to surreal extremes. Rather than the familiar seaside settings and stranded holidaymakers, the scenes feature adulterous lovers, bank robbers, swirling vortexes, and cataclysmic meteorites. Each vignette unfolds in a comedic and exaggerated manner, highlighting the brand's promise of security and assurance in unexpected and absurd situations.

So we defined a bold new vision: to be a brand built for every moment in your driving world. The goal was to drive growth in our core – breakdown cover (or as we call it, Roadside) - and highlight our other services too. This meant uniting individual business unit teams to act as one, modern, customer-focused, multi-service brand.  

This set a seemingly impossible brief for the creative strategy. The core of the challenge was to grow Roadside AND position the AA as multi-service. We had to overcome the massive gravitational force of our Roadside fame; while simultaneously increasing it.  

We also had to unite the entire AA ecosystem of diverse businesses under one brand idea and make the brand appeal equally to customers old and new, young and old.  In essence, we had to move from “think AA – think breakdown” to “think AA = think driving”.