AA ADVERTISING Further to your artcle about our displeasure with
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the way the AA is behaving regarding advertising (CM 28 Jan-3 Feb), I would like to point out that we at least had the courtesy to write to the association first about this and when no reply was forthcoming we wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The AA spokesman is asking why we pulled out of the Focus Group (RIFG). Yet again we will inform them why not only we, but also AVM) pulled out.
We did this because HIFG was and still is pandering to the clubs and not listening to the people who they so glibly claim to speak for, which by all accounts is now only one small recovery association, according to their letter headings. The others are only connected by association and do not solely depend on recovery.
It is recorded in Vehicle Recovery Link (Issue 46) that the M's vehicles do not need to meet the same criteria as the recovery operators' vehicles. It is also recorded that in areas where RIFG standard garages were not available it would revert back to the existing system.
First, I would have thought the AA would have led by example. Second, it would seem it will only use the standards if it suits them. To our members this is a case of one standard for operators and whatever standard the AA chooses for itself to suit it at any particular time.
notice that it has not answered the question regarding the "fourth emergency service", and the use of genuine emergency service vehicles and personnel in their advert, with no sign of their own vehicles or personnel.
Peter Cosby FIMI, AMIRTE
Chairman, Road Rescue Recovery Association.