The AA has been part of British life for well over a century. Its yellow vehicles, roadside patrols and instantly recognisable identity have earned a level of familiarity and trust that most brands would give their bonnet arm for.
But history can create a challenge as well as an advantage.
Over time, The AA had begun to feel a little more traditional than the business it had become. The brand was trusted, certainly, but there was also a danger that people saw it as something their parents had rather than a modern organisation relevant to the way they drive and live today.
That perception no longer reflected the full AA offer. The business had grown far beyond traditional roadside assistance into insurance, financial services, driving schools, vehicle support, fleet services and a much broader range of products for individuals and businesses.
So, working in partnership with Elmwood Brand Consultancy, I helped develop a refreshed AA tone of voice built around the new Always Ahead brand positioning.
The challenge was not simply to make the writing sound younger or more energetic. That would have been the easy bit.
The real job was to modernise the brand voice without throwing away the confidence, reassurance and authority people expected from The AA. It also had to work within the complex realities of regulated copywriting, because a significant proportion of AA communications relates to insurance, lending and other financial products governed by FCA requirements.
In other words, the writing needed more life, but it could never play fast and loose with clarity, accuracy or compliance.
Refreshing the voice without losing the trust
When a long-established brand changes its tone of voice, there is always a temptation to swing too far in the opposite direction.
If the existing language feels formal, make everything casual.
If the brand feels traditional, pile in contemporary slang.
If the writing lacks personality, turn every sentence into an advertising headline.
That might create a noticeable change, but it rarely creates a useful one.
The AA’s heritage was not something we wanted to escape from. The trust built up over generations remained one of its greatest assets. The aim was to make that trust feel active and relevant rather than inherited and slightly dusty.
The tone needed to say, “You’re in safe hands,” but with forward momentum. It needed to communicate expertise without sounding stiff, confidence without complacency and warmth without descending into matey overfamiliarity.
This became particularly important when considering the sheer range of people The AA speaks to.
At one end, there is an everyday driver looking for breakdown cover, car insurance, driving lessons or guidance on buying an electric vehicle. At the other, there are fleet managers and B2B decision-makers responsible for keeping hundreds or thousands of vehicles moving.
Those audiences need different information and different levels of technical detail. But they should not feel as though they are dealing with entirely separate organisations.
The new tone of voice therefore had to be flexible enough to work across B2C and B2B copywriting while retaining one recognisable AA personality.
Turning ‘Always Ahead’ into language
The refreshed brand story was built around Always Ahead: a promise that The AA would not simply respond when something went wrong, but help people understand what was coming next and move forward with confidence.
Our task was to turn that positioning into a practical writing style.
We defined the overall spirit as Always Ahead ‘yellow’ energy, combining forward momentum, positivity and understanding. That gave writers a useful sense of how the language should feel rather than merely providing them with a list of adjectives to memorise.
From there, four tone of voice principles were developed:
Energetic
The AA should sound enthusiastic, proactive and ready to act. But energetic did not mean breathless, shouty or permanently covered in exclamation marks.
It meant using active verbs, removing unnecessary formality and ensuring the writing moved with purpose.
Warm
The voice should speak from one person to another rather than from a large organisation to a customer account number.
That meant being reasonable, reassuring and empathetic, particularly when dealing with problems or more sensitive financial circumstances. Warmth needed to feel genuine rather than scripted.
Positively purposeful
Optimism was important, but it had to lead somewhere.
The AA should help people understand what to do next, whether arranging breakdown cover, choosing insurance, navigating a website journey or considering a new vehicle. The writing needed to be positive without becoming vague or unrealistically cheerful.
Genuinely confident
Confidence is essential for a brand people rely on when they are stranded at the roadside or making an important financial decision.
However, confidence can easily tip into bragging or arrogance. The voice therefore needed to be proud but grounded, direct but never blunt, and certain without overstating what a product or service could deliver.
Together, these principles allowed the brand voice to feel fresher and more contemporary while preserving the credibility that made The AA valuable in the first place.
Bringing energy to regulated copywriting
Some of the most interesting tone of voice challenges appear when brand personality meets financial regulation.
Insurance, lending and other financial services communications cannot simply be rewritten as colourful advertising. Customers need to understand the product, the limitations, the cost and any conditions attached to it. Important information cannot be hidden behind cleverness, and the copy must remain fair, clear and compliant.
But compliant copy does not have to be lifeless.
In fact, clarity and tone of voice should support each other. Familiar language can make complicated information easier to understand. Active sentences can make the customer’s next step clearer. A warmer opening can reduce the distance between the organisation and the reader without compromising the accuracy of the detail that follows.
This is where the new AA brand voice had to earn its keep.
We explored real communications including loan sales emails, insurance journeys, roadside acquisition, driving school materials and product guidance. The aim was not to cover regulated copy with a layer of jaunty language. It was to identify where personality could improve attention, understanding and engagement, while knowing when the functional information needed to take the lead.
That balance is central to my approach as a freelance tone of voice copywriter. Brand language should never obstruct what somebody needs to know. It should help them get there.
Two writing formulas for different jobs
To make the framework more practical, we created two complementary ways of writing: the Always Ahead Mindset and the Always Ahead Signature.
The Mindset approach was designed for more brand-led advertising and marketing communications. It began with a piece of colour inspired by the Always Ahead positioning, then followed immediately with the relevant product, service or message.
This gave campaign copy, social content and more expressive communications the freedom to lead with energy while quickly grounding that energy in something useful.
The Signature approach reversed the order.
For SEO copy, website journeys, regulated communications and more functional content, it began with the product, service or key information. Once that was clear, the writer could add a touch of Always Ahead personality.
The distinction sounds simple, which was precisely the point.
Writers did not need a complicated matrix every time they opened a blank document. They needed a memorable way to decide whether brand colour or functional clarity should come first. The workshop materials described these as two formulas serving one consistent tone of voice.
Making one brand work across B2B and B2C
The B2B work was an important test of the new voice.
Fleet managers, procurement teams and commercial partners need confidence, clarity and evidence. They are not looking for consumer advertising dressed up in a lanyard.
But B2B copy is still read by people.
The tone of voice framework encouraged writers to maintain professionalism without retreating into corporate language. Active verbs, straightforward explanations, varied sentence lengths and a clear understanding of the reader’s pressures could bring energy into fleet and business communications without weakening their authority.
This helped create a consistent relationship between the B2B and B2C brand voice. The expression changed according to the audience, but the underlying personality remained recognisable: proactive, knowledgeable, human and ready to help people move forward.
Helping people write it for themselves
A tone of voice document can be strategically sound, beautifully written and completely useless if nobody feels confident applying it.
That is why the rollout included a number of interactive, in-person workshops held at Elmwood’s London offices.
The sessions brought together internal AA teams responsible for external B2B and B2C communications, alongside partner agencies working across everything from social media to direct marketing.
We introduced the thinking behind the brand voice, explored how the principles flexed across different audiences and channels, and worked through the Mindset and Signature approaches using practical exercises.
Participants rewrote real examples in small groups, discussed where the language was working and where it had gone too far, and explored how the tone could remain energetic while still being compliant, credible and appropriate to the situation.
The workshops were not designed to turn everybody into an advertising copywriter overnight. They were there to give people a shared understanding of the voice and greater confidence in their own judgement.
That is ultimately what good tone of voice training should achieve. People should leave feeling enabled, not policed.
A modern voice for a modern AA
The final tone of voice framework helped The AA sound more relevant to a new generation without pretending the brand had suddenly appeared last Tuesday.
It protected the qualities people already valued — trust, knowledge and reassurance — while adding more energy, warmth and forward movement.
It also created a brand voice capable of operating across advertising, marketing, social media, direct communications, regulated financial services copy, B2B fleet communications and everyday customer journeys.
That breadth matters because tone of voice is not just the colourful bit at the top of an advert. It is the cumulative impression created by every email, web page, letter, social post, service message and conversation.
You can see selected pages from The AA tone of voice work here:
https://juliangratton.onfabrik.com/portfolio/the-aa-brand-tone-of-voice
To see more of the full tone of voice document, discuss brand voice workshops or talk about a regulated copywriting, B2B, B2C, advertising or marketing project, please get in touch.
I work with global organisations, growing SMEs and brands at every stage in between. The scale may differ, but the challenge is often the same: finding a voice that feels distinctive, credible and genuinely useful to the people expected to write it.