The campaign encourages individuals to “fill in the blank” by identifying aspects of their working and financial lives that they want to bring to an end, and to work with a Merrill Lynch financial advisor to help them focus on what matters most when planning for and during their retirement years, the US banking group said.

The campaign, called “help2retire”, follows on from research in the Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights Survey, issued on 14 January, showing that 51 per cent of retired respondents would have focused more on “life goals” and less on “the numbers” when planning for retirement if they could do it all again.

“As will be shown throughout our help2retire campaign, retirement planning is an intensely personal process that individuals are wisely beginning earlier in their lives, and throughout which a Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor can serve as a trusted advisor,” said Claire Huang, head of marketing at Bank of America Global Wealth Management, Global Banking and Global Markets.