As a member-based organisation RAC has been supporting its members and giving back to WA since 1905. RAC doesn’t have shareholders so profits are used to benefit members by improving products and services and reinvesting in community programs to make WA a better place. RAC members also have access to WA’s largest member benefits program consisting of over 100 travel and retail partners which contributes to millions of dollars of member savings each year.

The RAC product and service offering is diverse. From the motoring legacy offering roadside assistance, which has expanded into offering car servicing, batteries and tyres, to protecting members’ homes with home and car insurance, as well as home security and repairs services. To supporting their dreams with finance loans for new cars or home renovations, to enhancing their lifestyles by offering travel and cruise bookings, travel insurance and the opportunity to stay at RAC parks and resorts from the northern tip of WA to the south west region.

With a strong heritage and foundation in motoring, RAC invests in initiatives on behalf of members with the objective to make it safer, easier and more sustainable to move around Western Australia. Some of the initiatives RAC contribute to include the sponsorship of the RAC Rescue helicopters and their life saving missions, delivering road safety education to over half a million Western Australian children every year, and investing in the first Automated Vehicle Program trial to help understand how driverless technology can help us in the future.

RAC also campaign for safe and sustainable transport options on behalf of their one million members, including supporting the Risky Roads campaign, driver distraction campaign and advocating to government on motoring taxes, infrastructure needs and safety.

However most importantly, when you purchase certain RAC products you don’t just become a customer, you become a member. This gives members access to a range of benefits beyond simply the product they pay for: the Member Benefits program gives RAC members discounts on RAC products and services, plus savings on fuel, shopping and more. But beyond the personal benefit to members through discounts, the revenue from individual memberships contribute towards the RAC community agendas and initiatives for a better WA.

RAC’s member-based business model means the more members it has, the more it can give back to those members (through discounts on RAC products and services, as well as discounts at external retail partners) and give back to the broader WA community (through sponsorship and advocacy initiatives). This idea was brought to life under the campaign: The Power of Membership.

As the first ever truly integrated RAC campaign, running across all RAC’s products and services, the Power of Membership aligned brand, product and membership advertising under a common creative idea. It shifted the traditional marketing approach of promoting product benefits and member benefits separately to promoting the value of membership through better linkage between product propositions and member benefits.

This shift required strategic campaign co-ordination across 14 Business Units to achieve a holistic, integrated and strategic communications plan that communicated many products and services as one brand, all connected by the theme of membership.

To inform the development of the campaign RAC interviewed members and non-members which revealed the insight that there was a mixed understanding of the benefits of RAC membership. The research highlighted that while some people had an inkling that they were RAC members, they didn’t know exactly what it meant, or how powerful their membership actually was. And it’s the power of membership that allows RAC to give back to the individual and Western Australia in general. Instead of communicating what RAC sells, it focused on communicating what membership with RAC gives.

The ultimate success of ‘the power of membership’ campaign is that its value can be measured above and beyond a traditional campaign of new customer growth. The ‘power of membership’ creates an ongoing cycle of benefit, where performance drives commercial benefit, which in turn allows for even greater customer and social benefit for the WA community.

The ‘Power of Membership’ campaign launched in September 2016 and ran until January 2017. The unprecedented levels achieved for key targets and brand metrics resulted in the campaign platform being extended from 2017 through to 2018 across brand and all Business Units. The continued success and unparalleled results brought about a third extension of the campaign platform to commence in 2019.

Unprecedented results continue with solid growth in brand engagement, as well as member benefits awareness, usage and growth, and as such a third extension campaign will be launched in 2019 to further communicate the power of membership.

As at February 2019, RAC membership is now over 1.051 million members representing one in every two WA households. Never before have all stakeholders been so aligned and on a journey as a group, because as membership grows RAC’s ability to give back becomes even stronger.