U.S. Trust to be highlighted in down-to-earth print and television campaign. Bank of America plans to launch a print and television advertising campaign targeting millionaires and featuring its U.S. Trust wealth-management subsidiary.

"Bank of America hasn't done a lot of advertising around its wealth-management capabilities," Anne Finucane, the chief marketing officer of Bank of America, told the New York Times last week. "This is new to this part of the bank."

New face

The campaign, developed by ad firm Hill Holliday, will cast Bank of America's high-end services as "the new face of wealth" and "wealth management for today's wealth." The ads target people with at least $3 million in investable assets. The campaign is expected to cost bank of America about $25 million.

Brian Moynihan, president of Bank of America Global Wealth & Investment Management -- a division that includes the bank's wealth-management business, U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management -- says the point of the ad campaign is "to convey to clients, prospects and the broader marketplace that [U.S. Trust] understands -- and is uniquely qualified to address -- the needs, motivations and values associated with this new face of wealth."

Gritty issues

The ads are meant to appeal is to first-generation wealth creators who haven't forgotten their humbler origins -- or like to think they haven't.

The voice-over of one of the T.V. spots says, "She owns a house in Palm Beach, a villa in St. Bart's, condo in Sun Valley -- and yet a piece of her still lives on a cul-de-sac in Ohio." Another goes: "The most valuable car in his collection isn't the Italian roadster or Le Mans racer or the British limousine, but a 1968 bus."

As it happens, Citi Smith Barney is running a campaign targeting self-made millionaires, also designed by Hill Holliday, which has "Working Wealth" as its campaign theme. It's pretty compelling and it touches on some gritty issues.

"The base of wealth in America is changing, but the way we have talked to consumers about it has not changed," Hill Holliday president Karen Rather told the N.Y. Times. "It's stuck in this stereotypical world of boats and summer homes and vacation homes."

The UMA

Bank of America also plans to launch a unified managed account (UMA) program for its wealthy and ultra-wealthy clients. Like most UMAs, this one combines separate account managers, ETFs and mutual funds in a single account.

Developed and administered by Bank of America's Consulting Services Group, the new UMA will be rolled out to all U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management clients over the next few months, starting with investors who were clients of Bank of America Private Bank before the Bank of America completed its acquisition of U.S. Trust early in July 2007.

U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management had more than $220 billion in assets under management and more than $322 billion in total client assets on 1 July 2007. -FWR

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