Picture a television advertisement panning a row of suburban homes. Then a calm voice saying, “She owns a house in Palm Beach, a villa in St. Bart’s, a condo in Sun Valley. And yet a piece of her still lives on a cul-de-sac in Ohio.”
This is one of the latest ads launched by Bank of America® (BofA) and newly acquired U.S. Trust® aimed at the self-made ordinary millionaires of today’s society. In the endeavor to expand its wealth management division as part of its main approach for overall growth, BofA combined its own private banking unit with that of U.S. Trust for a total of $220 billion in assets. Although the campaign doesn’t highlight it, BofA, along with its mortgage and credit card services to middle-class Americans, plans to continue to provide
“white-glove” service to the elite, as it has in the past.
At a cost of approximately $25 million for the campaign, it is the largest endeavor that either of these entities has ever undertaken. The new ad campaign attempts to reach today’s wealthy population by keeping current with trends, depicting these folks as much more down to earth then in days past. Over more recent years, there are many more self made millionaires to market to than just the multi-millionaires and billionaires of days past. The main thrust of the new campaign is to emphasize that today’s investors think much differently about money than the tycoons and philanthropists of the past.
Jon Goldstein, a spokesperson for the bank says that this campaign is the premier introduction of the combined team to the public. The ads are targeted toward people with at least $3 million to invest and clearly revolve around the promotion that their wealth is self-made rather than inherited. Mr. Goldstein refers to this as “the core values of nostalgia for family and friendship.”
This fresh new marketing campaign was complied following extensive discussions with clients and wealth management advisors, as well as outside sources. The campaign, developed by the agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos (part of the Interpublic Group of Companies), includes not only television advertising, but newspaper and magazine ads as well. The promotion highlights two major ideas: one being the new face of wealth, the other wealth management for today’s wealth.
“Bank of America hasn’t done a lot of advertising around its wealth management capabilities,” said Anne M. Finucane, the chief marketing officer of the BofA. “This is new to this part of the bank.”
Bank of America is known as one of the world’s largest financial institutions, providing services to individuals, small and mid-sized businesses, as well as large corporations. The institution provides a large array of banking, investment, asset management, and offers many other services and products as part of its portfolio. In addition, BofA is the number one Small Business Administration (SBA) lender in the country as well as the number one SBA minority-owned small business lender. The company serves clients in 175 countries, holds relationships with 98 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500.
For greater than 200 years, U.S. Trust has offered unmatched resources and customized solutions to provide for their clients’ wealth structuring, investment management and credit needs. Clients served had previously included such well known names as the Vanderbilts, Rockerfellers, and Astors.
One of BofA’s major competitors, Smith Barney®, also advertises to the wealthier clients, but focuses more on the financial needs that occur later in life such as retirement, insurance, and trusts. Although BofA doesn’t have these items as a topic of this campaign, the company plans to launch a campaign specifically focused on retirement planning in the near future.
BofA, in its own corporate philanthropy, has recently begun a new 10-year plan to donate $1.5 billion to nonprofit organizations that are involved in improving the quality of their neighborhoods. As one of the most generous corporate donors, the BofA Charitable Foundation™ will contribute greater than $200 million in 2007. The bank also teams up with local leaders to find the most urgent needs of communities, and in turn Team Bank of America employees volunteer a total of more than 500,000 hours each year in the effort to improve the quality of life in local communities throughout the nation. Hence, these huge contributions denote how this prominent company invests its own wealth, by helping others.
