AA drives both ways up the digital highway

The challenge: Bringing the big yellow vans to life

Visualise the AA and you inevitably see the patrols: big yellow vans and guys in high visibility jackets. The AA has heritage as a motoring club which also stands them in good stead as a trusted provider of motoring advice. Our challenge was to bring these two attributes to life via digital advertising. Limited file size available in banner ads and stringent CPAs (cost-per-acquisition) meant rich media was out of the question.

Our strategy: The AA 'Answers' back

We got Chris Patience, Motoring Content Manager at the AA, to participate on Yahoo! Answers, a social network built around the idea that you can always find someone who knows the answer to anything online. The AA let Chris dedicate time to answering questions and keeping up a dialogue with anyone who wanted advice on cars. To stimulate debate and further conversation, Chris asked questions every three days across a range of driving and car topics.

The results: A perfect vehicle

Over a million people participated in the online discussions. We had successfully helped the AA create an area where drivers could talk to each other and know they would always find the best answers. The AA as a keyword search term on the Yahoo! engine moved up six places in terms of popularity within weeks of the launch. There was also a marked uplift in deals from format advertising on Yahoo!, and this continued with each new question posed by the AA.

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