B of A Ads Irk Daughter of Bank’s Founder : Use of A. P. Giannini’s Picture Called ‘Contemptible’

Bank of America promotes itself as “doing a job for more Californians.” But to Claire Giannini Hoffman, the bank her father founded 85 years ago is doing an unflattering job on his memory.

Hoffman, a frequent critic of Bank of America in recent years, is fighting mad over a series of recent B of A advertisements that show a picture of her father, A. P. Giannini, and invite customers to open checking accounts. She spent much of the weekend contacting newspapers and radio stations around the state to condemn the ads, calling them “an insult to my father.”

“It is contemptible, what they are doing,” the 84-year-old Hoffman said in a telephone interview. “They are using my father’s name and picture to promote their bank.”

B of A said it didn’t mean to offend Hoffman. “We’re sorry she feels that way,” bank spokeswoman Shirley Norton said.

The advertisements invited new B of A customers to open free checking accounts on “Founder’s Day,” officially celebrated each year on May 6, Giannini’s birthday. The ads declared, “This Saturday Is Our Founder’s Birthday and You Get the Present,” and ran in many newspapers around the state last week.

In B of A’s view, Norton said, the ads capture the spirit of A. P. Giannini. “He was very aggressive,” she said. “He went out and rang on doorbells to get customers. He didn’t sit in the branch office, waiting for customers to come to him.”

But Hoffman disagrees. She said the modern Bank of America does not represent the business philosophy espoused by her father, who died in 1949. “My father’s policy was to help people,” Hoffman said. “He believed that, if you helped people, eventually you would have people for friends as well as customers.”

Today’s B of A, she said, “is just another bank. If it didn’t have the same name, there would be no similarity at all.”

Hoffman, who delivered a blow to the bank’s image when she resigned from her honorary seat on its board in 1985 over what she called the “unpardonable” act of selling its San Francisco headquarters, said she has contacted a public relations firm and her lawyer “to see what I can do” about the ads.

She said she is also considering closing her account at B of A’s San Mateo, Calif., branch, known on the bank’s roster as the A. P. Giannini branch.