Constitution's bicentennial - Merrill Lynch

As a way of providing additional visibility to its offices around the country, Merrill Lynch & Company underwrote ''ratification parties'' in every state as part of the celebration of the Constitution's bicentennial.




July 1987

As a way of providing additional visibility to its offices around the country, Merrill Lynch & Company is underwriting ''ratification parties'' that will take place in every state as part of the celebration of the Constitution's bicentennial.

The stock broking company will spend $6 million that will finance 60 percent of the cost of the events. Each event will have the state's governor as host and will raise money for a project of the state's choice to increase understanding of the Constitution. In each event state officials, whose job it is to support the Constitution are honored.

Claudia J. Kahn, vice president, and Ann M. Simon, assistant vice president, corporate staff of Merrill Lynch are involved in the activity.

The event will coincide with the ratification date in each of the 13 original states. On Dec. 7, Delaware, the first state to ratify the document in 1787, will have a black-tie dinner dance in a hangar at Dover Air Force Base.

States other than the original 13 are selecting dates of particular historic meaning between Dec. 7 and the end of 1988.




The program was the idea of William A. Schreyer, chairman of Merrill Lynch, who wrote to each governor about the tie up according to Merrill Lynch officials.

The necessary local promotions will be handled by Merrill Lynch's advertising agency and public relations firm, Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt for advertising and Burson-Marsteller for public relations.

The brokerage will also underwrite a public television special called ''We The People'' that will run on four consecutive Tuesdays starting Sept. 22.

That series is already alluded to in an ad that Merrill Lynch began running in the spring and that has appeared in U.S. News & World Report, American Heritage and Black Enterprise. The artwork illustrates a number of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, with the headline ''Guaranteed in writing.'' The tagline says, ''Your world should know no boundaries.''

The ad will run again on Sept. 17, National Constitution Day, in The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia magazine.


For more details

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DB1139F933A25754C0A961948260

July 10, 1987