AAA

AAA sought a fresh 3-year auto insurance campaign to combat outdated ads and declining market share. Their print and digital materials needed rejuvenation, and brand awareness was fluctuating in key markets - CA and TX.

We aimed to revolutionize the traditional direct-response TV approach into a versatile, story-driven campaign. Our strategy centered around spots that could flex between direct response, brand response, and brand based on the market and testing.

Since price is a top factor in insurance switching, and our audience skewed older, our 'Saving You' concept gave a fresh twist to the savings message. Using real members sharing their savings stories, we created engaging, relatable narratives, fostering human connections and allowing adaptability across markets.

We handpicked compelling stories from 600 AAA members, covering a range of benefits (beyond insurance), creating a robust content library for all of AAA’s lines of business. Our diverse cast covered various interests, from camping families to amateur wrestling announcers.

Our objective was to generate 16 member stories, 8 each from CA and TX, designed for efficient post-production alterations and story swapping throughout the campaign.

What began as DR TV spots morphed into a multi-channel, cross-business content package, with TV, digital, in-store, social, and print in the mix.

We put together AAA’s first-ever campaign style guide, a beefy 70-pager for the in-house agency and their partner agencies nationwide.

Then we were off, spending 37 back-to-back shoot days across CA and TX. Our bounty? A whopping 32TB of video content, over 16,000 still images, and 16 TV spots. Most feature films have less shoot days. We maximized every opportunity.

The first two spots showed a 40% decrease in CPL after a 90-day run. And the other 14 stories we captured are still largely on drives waiting to be released into the wild.

The first spots were due within weeks of our final shoot day. Fortunately, our editorial team was on it from day one, organizing the footage and the sound bites by pre-determined silos for easy access during the entire campaign.

We setup a digital asset management library (Wiredrive) for AAA so they could easily access, search and share all of the campaign assets.

The first two spots (camping and softball member stories)--after running for 90 days–showed a 40% decrease in CPL. The campaign is ongoing.

After nailing the insurance spots, AAA's PR team picked us for a brand-new distracted driving campaign.

AAA, being a champion for road safety, wanted to curb the surge in distracted driving mishaps. The rise in accidents was alarming, and it seemed like no one was paying attention. We knew we wouldn't reach everyone, but we were hopeful of making a difference, even with our tight media budget.

First up, we dove into research, exploring the reasons behind distracted driving. We noticed similarities with drunk driving and the success of campaigns in reducing it. It clicked - let's use decades of drunk driving messages to tackle this modern menace. Hence, 'Don’t Drive Intoxicated. Don’t Drive Intexticated.' was born. If we could make texting at the wheel as frowned upon as drunk driving, we'd win PR points and, more importantly, save lives.

Our campaign spanned TV, radio, print, in-store, and even AAA vehicles carrying the message.

At the end of the day, the campaign racked up more than 102 million impressions. The TV spot was broadcasted around 25,000 times on top TV stations and popular cable networks. Plus, it bumped up distracted driving awareness from 8% to 25% in California, and from 2% to 14% in other regions. Not too shabby!

Armed with a treasure trove of content from our AAA Insurance shoot, it was time to revamp AAA's infomercial. We're talking about membership, insurance, travel, the whole shebang. Our task was to freshen up the look, vibe, and toss in some fresh messaging, all while staying true to what's worked for AAA all these years.

The crucial part? Finding a young, relatable host who'd vibe with our audience naturally. Plus, we needed members who could vouch for the perks of AAA membership.

The whole filming shindig went down across Southern California, with Disney's 890-acre Golden Oak Ranch in Santa Clarita being our main stage. Thanks to its variety of neighborhood sets, we had plenty of looks to play with and full control of the streets, letting us move swiftly through the shoots.

In the end, we made sure the assets were modular for easy localization, modification, and versioning by the teams. All in a day's work.