Marketing! That’s where it’s at! No need to set things right at your company when you can just keep doing the same thing but with a new marketing strategy. Local favorite Bank of America is trying their hand at this, ready to dust off the greatest asset it acquired when it took over Merrill Lynch: a giant cartoon bull.

This week, BofA will launch a $10m print and online advertising campaign in the US touting its Bank of America Merrill Lynch division, which consists of global commercial, corporate and investment banking businesses as well as capital markets operations. The campaign will roll out globally in July.

Later this year, BofA will launch a print and television campaign promoting Merrill’s ” thundering herd ” of financial advisers, under the corporate name Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. Signage for the “thundering herd” will continue to use Merrill’s symbol of the bull.

Hoping that the sour memory of John Thain’s thousand-dollar commode is locked safely in the past thanks to America’s collectively short attention span, BAC is banking (hah!) on the lingering memory of Merrill’s bull as a well-respected and popular icon of a simpler time when banks weren’t teetering on the brink of collapse, which would be a good idea if that bull weren’t the symbol of a bank that…almost collapsed and was only saved when another bank was bullied into buying them.  Or if many of the people that bull used to represent hadn’t quit the company and gone elsewhere en masse.  But whatever!  And yes, those remaining persons are now referred to as a “thundering herd” because they are all morbidly obese who cause the verry ground to quiver with each step.

However, BAC will likely not be using the Merrill Lynch name instead of Bank of America in overseas locales where the word “America” conjures up, shall we say, less than charitable emotions.

[Chief marketing officer Anne] Finucane said the bank’s top institutional clients were sophisticated, global operators. “They realise Merrill Lynch is an American-headquartered company, ” she said.

While, on the other hand, the rest of its customers are so incredibly stupid that a cartoon bull will trick them into thinking everything is okay.

Still, this is better than GMAC changing  to Ally, a name which brings to mind diet pills that make you poop grease into your pants.