The AA: Finding a one-stop-shop, not a one-size-fits-all

About the AA

The AA, renowned for its excellence in road safety, motor maintenance, and vehicle breakdown rescue, is a staple in the UK’s automotive industry. Established nearly 120 years ago, it serves 13 million customers, offering diverse services from breakdown cover to insurance, driving education, car sales and maintenance.

 

Jack Cousens, as the Head of Roads Policy, works on a wide array of issues. His role involves liaising with parliamentarians, civil servants, and special advisors to champion the interests of motorists.

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The Problem:

• The AA needed stronger public affairs data to increase their impact
• Targeted engagement was difficult, as the team didn’t have enough information on what was relevant to their work
• Jack and his colleagues wanted to identify important political developments, but also spot trends and understand where key decisions were likely to be made in the future

The AA had great systems and tools in place for tracking updates related to PR. However, the information available to those working in public affairs and lobbying roles was much weaker.

This disadvantage meant that even with exceptional people and great resources, their public policy impact wasn’t as strong as it needed to be.

The lack of robust intelligence for those engaged in public affairs and lobbying roles at The AA was having a big impact on the company’s ability to make an impact.

“We needed to find a tool that would highlight political developments related to the issues we are working on, but also help connect the dots in terms of where key decisions were likely to be happening.”

As an organisation representing millions of customers and motorists, The AA needed to level up its public affairs data. Additionally, Jack and his team were keen to enhance their ability to measure the success of their campaigns.

“We wanted to be able to monitor the impact that we are having by tracking correlations between what we’ve been putting out there and where this is picked up and used.”

With a clear need for comprehensive coverage, The AA turned to PolicyMogul.

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PolicyMogul and The AA

PolicyMogul bridged the gap in data intelligence and offered targeted direction for The AA’s lobbying efforts. Jack praised PolicyMogul’s ability to cut through the manual process.

“What PolicyMogul is doing is pointing us in the right direction, indicating that these are the people you should be contacting because we know what things they’re interested in.”

One key area The AA saw particular benefit from was PolicyMogul’s advanced stakeholder mapping feature.

“The stakeholder mapping is really good. It’s not just wide and varied, you can narrow it down to very specific topics that you want to follow. For example, road safety is something I want to focus on and stakeholder mapping guides me to the people that I need to be tracking and engaging with.

 A real value is that the platform seems to understand that it’s not necessarily about picking out the front bench and the shadow front bench. It’s the backbenchers that often hold the sway and influence.”

In addition, Jack found value in PolicyMogul’s tracking functionality. It gave the team at The AA a way to compare the results between a briefing document and a press release and identify what works and what doesn’t.

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PolicyMogul’s Impact

• Jack and his team now identify and target exactly the right people thanks to PolicyMogul’s advanced stakeholder mapping features
• All relevant information is in one, easy to search place, saving the public affairs team at The AA time and effort
• Intuitive design and user interface, meaning staying updated is easier and quicker than ever before

PolicyMogul had a transformative impact on The AA’s public affairs operations, giving individuals all of the information they needed in a clear and accessible way. 

Not only could people spend less time looking at updates and stay better informed, but they could do so with tailored alerts and digests that suited them. This means the team at The AA are spending less time chasing, and more time doing.

“PolicyMogul has been a huge leap forward for us. We’ve since abandoned the manual processes that were slowing us down, and no longer rely on emails and disparate sources of information.”

Since using PolicyMogul to level up their public affairs work, Jack and his team have been able to efficiently target the stakeholders they wanted to influence.

 

“Using PolicyMogul enables us to seek out parliamentarians and special advisors who have an interest in topics including road safety, vehicle maintenance, and electric and autonomous vehicles. 

Once we pinpoint these political actors, we can ensure that we are sharing our points of view and insights by making our press releases and briefing materials available to them directly.”

Moreover, the lobbying tools were invaluable in tracking the efficacy of their content.

“The influencing and lobbying tools are really interesting and useful. A key point for us is also the tracking bit that sits behind the system, so you can see how effective your lobbying material has been, such as how many policymakers have actually engaged with it.”

For Jack and colleagues, PolicyMogul is providing a solution that helps them reach their potential as public affairs professionals.

With broad and detailed coverage, sophisticated targeting features and industry-leading analytics, the public affairs team at The AA is having a greater impact than ever before.

If you’re interested in learning more about how PolicyMogul can make your public affairs work easier and more impactful, register for a trial today.