To Win Younger Members, AAA Is Crafting a 'Behavioral Shift'

The American Automobile Association might have great brand recognition, but in a world of cell phone apps for directions, trip planning and ride-shares, many people under age 45 think of AAA as something for their parents, not them. To drive customer acquisition among younger generations, Scott Lugar, CMO of AAA Club Alliance, the affiliate that represents 13 states mostly along the East Coast and Washington, D.C., revamped the marketing strategy. He slowed the volume of direct mail—a mainstay of AAA’s marketing plan— and sponsorships in favor of strategic content placed within social media. When Lugar joined the AAA franchise in 2019, about 19% of the overall marketing budget was allocated for digital marketing. Today it’s at 25% and is expected to reach 35% in 2022. “There's a whole behavioral shift I'm trying to make within our AAA marketing,” Lugar told Adweek. “I'm trying to wake up a demographic that may think, ‘AAA is just for my parents or grandparents.’ I'm also trying to use digital channels to penetrate a market that has historically been marketed to with direct mail. And it's working.” Two Former ViacomCBS Execs’ New Consultancy IF7 Will Help Clients Reach Gen Z In the last 18 months, Lugar’s club has added about 70,000 new members. Nearly 48% of them are under age 45, especially in the key states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Adding more younger members is lucrative, too. Their comfort with technology means they typically cost less to support through phone calls, since roadside assistance is available via AAA’s app. More than roadside service AAA membership tends correlate with life cycles. “In any given market, 35% of people are AAA members, but about 65% have been a member at some point,” Lugar said. “There’s an ebb and flow to membership.” Lugar uses himself as an example. His dad purchased him a membership when he started to drive. But when he was old enough to pay his own bills, Lugar let the membership lapse. He only picked it up again when his teenage daughters started to drive. His daughters and their cohort are part of that all-important younger demographic he and his team want to retain as members. Part of the roadblock is the perception that AAA only provides roadside assistance. While that’s the association’s “bread and butter,” Lugar is trying to expand the public’s understanding of AAA’s offerings. He points to AAA discounts, travel planning and insurance. Like-minded creators To achieve a broader image as more than just a vehicle service provider, the AAA Club Alliance partnered with Props, a content marketing platform that pairs specialized social media creators—think travel, fashion and cooking—with tangentially related brands. For AAA, that meant placing paid digital ads within content from road trippers, car enthusiasts and travel lovers. Although that partnership was driving traffic to the site, the team discovered that 60% of those potential customers were falling off along the way to purchase. After a deep dive, Lugar and his team learned users found the landing page confusing. So the team customized a landing page specifically for those younger users coming to AAA through the Props content. From there, they streamlined the process from landing page to discovering which plan was the best value for their needs. With those tweaks to the site, visitors through the Props content were coming to the website at about a 4% higher rate than other digital marketing channels. Still, Lugar is testing new modes of marketing. He points to TikTok and YouTube, where he’s “messing around” with ideas on teaching people how to fold a map. “We are pushing really hard on new ways to think,” he said. Vacations Are Curtailed, but Road Trips Are Rolling—and That’s Good News for These Brands