The company, started in a one-room office in Manhattan with $1 billion in assets, achieved its ascent from a bond shop to a diversified firm managing stocks, bonds, hedge funds, index funds and ETFs by acquiring competitors. In 2004, it purchased State Street Research & Management for $375 million from MetLife Inc. and two years later it acquired Merrill Lynch's investment unit for $9 billion, bringing its assets above the $1 trillion mark. BlackRock bought the hedge fund-of-funds business of Quellos Group LLC in 2008.

BlackRock's first move into the spotlight came when it went public in 1999, raising $126 million in an initial offering.

"I don't like being that visible in the industry -- I much preferred the first 12 years when no one knew who BlackRock was," Fink said. "But I don't think I could stand there and say our voice could be silent anymore. Our scale, our visibility, our business model has given us a platform in which we need to have a voice on behalf of our clients."

'New World'

BlackRock's shares have gained 40 percent since it announced that it would acquire Merrill Lynch's investment unit in February 2006, compared with the 18 percent decline in the 20-member index that tracks asset managers and custody banks.

To make its views heard, BlackRock in February began its "new world" campaign, telling clients how to invest in an uncertain market, three years after Pimco coined the term "new normal" following the 2008 financial crisis. Fink last year said he didn't share Pimco's view on the post-crisis economy and theory of "new normal," which describes a world of subdued stock and bond returns as growth slows in developed economies and emerging markets grow more dominant.

Four-page inserts appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times as part of BlackRock's campaign. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in February, Fink said the traditional mix of putting 60 percent of assets in stocks and 40 percent in bonds is inadequate in a market characterized by an aging population, a reduction in borrowing and risk-taking by individuals and governments, and a greater role of emerging economies.

Promoting Equities

BlackRock executives including Robert Kapito and Robert Doll have also been speaking publicly about how investors can be harmed by sitting in cash and focusing on short-term investing.

Kapito, a co-founder and president of the firm, told CNN Money last month that he has about 70 percent of his investment portfolio in dividend-paying global stocks. Both he and Doll, BlackRock's chief equity strategist, have appeared on CNBC promoting equities this year. About 44 percent of BlackRock's assets are in equities, which generated almost half of the firm's revenue in 2011, or $4.4 billion, according to company filings.

Becoming a household name is important because then it's easier for brokers to sell BlackRock's products to retail investors, said Luke Montgomery, a research analyst who covers asset managers at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.