How The AA Used Digital PR to Overtake Competitors in a Crowded Market
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The AA is one of the most established names in the UK motoring space. They approached Kaizen with a clear challenge – they needed to close the gap with the competition across off-site performance, without compromising on brand voice or control.
The Challenge:
The AA’s internal PR team had decades of experience and full oversight of all media activity. Every idea, asset and outreach list required multiple rounds of review. Although highly experienced, this process often slowed delivery by weeks.
The goals were clear:
- Increase high-quality links to the product page
- Build consistent visibility across top-tier press
- Reduce production delays while respecting internal sign-off
Our Strategy:
We created a structured, blended Digital PR approach to deliver off-site performance while working seamlessly with The AA’s established brand processes.
1. Hero Blog Campaigns
We launched several standout campaigns that combined original survey data with topical desk research. These campaigns were built around editorial insights and planned in advance to allow for internal reviews and stakeholder feedback.
Campaign Highlights:
2. Repurposing Internal Blog Content
To scale up coverage while managing approval times, we worked with existing AA blog articles that had already been cleared by the internal PR team. These were rewritten as press releases, tailored to newsrooms and media calendars.
This gave us a fast, effective way to deliver coverage without restarting the internal approval process.
Top Performing Repurposed Articles
One of the most effective wins came from repurposing existing on-site content that had never been used for outreach. Without adding any new data or expert commentary, we identified high-potential articles that were already live but underutilised. By refining the angles and reframing the stories to better align with current media narratives, we unlocked strong coverage opportunities. This approach proves that sometimes the value lies not in creating new content, but in recognising and elevating what’s already there.
3. Link Reclamation at Scale
The AA’s PR team regularly secured strong brand mentions across national and motoring press. We introduced a structured link reclamation process to follow up on these mentions and request that a link be added.
With support from the PR team, this proved highly effective.
By identifying and following up on unlinked PR mentions, we secured 17 high-authority backlinks, with an average Domain Rating of 80 and a 34% conversion rate from mentions to links.
Strengthening the Workflow
We worked closely with The AA to streamline sign-offs and develop a clear, collaborative workflow across PR, SEO and our delivery team.
This reduced the average production timeline over a month, giving The AA faster campaign output and a stronger cadence of results.
The Outcome
Over the past 18-months, we delivered:
The AA now commands a stronger off-site profile, with more consistent coverage and link equity than ever before. The partnership also unlocked new internal ways of working that supported long-term scale and agility.
Want to See Similar Results?
If your team faces internal bottlenecks or approval cycles, but you still want to win in press and organic visibility, we’ll show you how to make it work.
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