Comment: How the AA won the public relations battle with RAC

While I was investigating the story on Aviva selling RAC, somebody made an interesting observation.

They said Aviva had high hopes for RAC to rival the AA, but that never really happened - and one of the reasons for that was down to the AA’s superior public relations.

That’s not to discredit the RAC; they have some capable people working in PR. It’s just that they were up against an exceptional PR team at the AA.

A good defence ...

The AA's PR team has made an immense contribution in building the AA brand to create a favourable impression with the public.

The company is also proactive, in the sense that it has a good research department: findings, such as the premium index, are distributed widely by the PR team.

The AA is also quick to seize upon trends in the motoring community, such as young drivers being priced out of car insurance or rising fraud. They react quickly to news events too – notice how often they were referenced in the news when the cold winter struck.

On the reactive side, the PR team is quick to respond to journalists' queries that have the potential for negative press. Notice, for example, how well it handled the potential storm over restructuring the company's pension deficit.

Brand values

In president Edmund King, the AA has a very smooth communicator, backed up by a helpful and hard-working press team, who have a thoroughly good understanding of their company.

If the new owners of RAC - whomever they may eventually be - really want to make the company a force to be reckoned with, they should start pinching some ideas off their closest rival.

We live in the so-called ‘age of the brand’ and - as the AA has so deftly demonstrated - a good PR team plays a massive part in building that.