iShares

Sub-brand

BlackRock’s global exchange-traded fund brand, offering index and active investment products across equities, bonds, commodities, and other asset classes.

Last updated October 14, 2026

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Overview

iShares is the exchange-traded fund brand and platform of BlackRock, Inc., one of the world’s largest asset managers. The brand provides publicly traded funds that give investors access to diversified portfolios of stocks, bonds, commodities, and other investment exposures through brokerage accounts and other investment platforms. Its products serve individual investors, financial advisers, institutions, retirement plans, and wealth managers. The brand originated in 2000 under Barclays Global Investors, when exchange-traded funds were still a relatively young investment structure. iShares helped establish ETFs as practical tools for obtaining diversified, liquid, and comparatively transparent market exposure. Its fund range expanded from broad equity and fixed-income strategies into country and regional funds, sector funds, factor and thematic products, currency-hedged strategies, sustainable-investing products, and commodity-linked exposures. The platform also includes actively managed ETFs alongside traditional index-tracking funds. BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors in 2009, bringing the iShares business into BlackRock. The acquisition made iShares a central part of BlackRock’s public-markets offering and gave the brand access to BlackRock’s investment research, portfolio-management capabilities, trading infrastructure, and distribution network. Although many funds retain their own legal entities, prospectuses, index providers, and exchange tickers, iShares functions as the common consumer-facing identity across the platform. Notable products include the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, iShares Russell 2000 ETF, and iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF. In 2024, BlackRock also used the iShares name for its spot Bitcoin product, iShares Bitcoin Trust, expanding the brand into a regulated exchange-traded vehicle designed to provide exposure to bitcoin through conventional market infrastructure. In 2024 BlackRock announced that it would apply the iShares branding more broadly across its ETF lineup, reflecting the brand’s importance and an effort to make BlackRock’s ETF offering easier to navigate. iShares remains active globally and positions itself around investor access, diversification, transparency, choice, and long-term financial participation. It is a product brand rather than a separately incorporated or separately listed public company.

History

iShares was established in 2000 by Barclays Global Investors as an ETF brand. Its emergence coincided with the early institutionalization of exchange-traded funds, which combine features of mutual funds and listed securities: a fund can hold a diversified portfolio while its shares trade throughout the day on an exchange. iShares helped bring this structure to a wide range of equity, bond, regional, sector, factor, and commodity exposures. During the 2000s the platform expanded internationally and developed a large family of funds linked to major market indexes. ETFs offered investors a way to obtain broad exposure in a single trade, with portfolio holdings generally disclosed on a regular basis and shares traded in the secondary market. This made the products useful to both long-term allocators and investors seeking tactical exposure. In 2009 BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors. The transaction transferred iShares into BlackRock and made the ETF business a major pillar of BlackRock’s public-markets franchise. Under BlackRock, iShares benefited from the parent company’s global distribution, institutional relationships, investment technology, securities-lending capabilities, and risk-management resources. The brand continued to operate through numerous fund legal entities and investment vehicles, but iShares became the principal public identity for BlackRock’s ETF products. The following decade brought substantial growth in the ETF industry. iShares broadened its range beyond conventional market-capitalization index funds, adding fixed-income, dividend, low-volatility, factor, thematic, sustainable, currency-hedged, and actively managed strategies. It also became a prominent provider of core portfolio products intended to serve as building blocks for asset allocation. Distribution through brokerages, advisers, retirement channels, and institutional platforms helped extend the brand’s reach beyond specialist ETF users. BlackRock increased consumer and adviser education through product websites, research, advertising, and market commentary. Campaigns such as Keep Evolving, Expect More with iShares, and Future Baller$ framed ETFs as tools for changing financial needs, long-term planning, and a younger generation of investors. In 2022, the Future Baller$ initiative connected the brand with NBA rookies and used sports and long-term decision-making as an analogy for investing. In January 2024, U.S. regulators approved spot bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. The product extended the brand into digital-asset exposure while retaining an exchange-traded format familiar to stock and bond investors. iShares subsequently advertised the fund with the message Get Your Share of Progress, using restrained creative rather than the more sensational style associated with some cryptocurrency marketing. In 2024 BlackRock announced that it would use iShares as the branding for all of its ETFs, a move intended to make an increasingly broad product platform easier to understand. In 2025 the brand introduced The Market Is Yours, a global campaign portraying market participation as accessible to people from ordinary walks of life. iShares remains an active global ETF platform spanning index and active strategies, with products distributed across major financial markets.

2025
The Market Is Yours campaign
[2]The Market Is Yours with iSharesmotherfamily.com
iShares launches a global brand campaign focused on investor access and participation.
2024
iShares Bitcoin Trust launch
[4]Bold BlackRock Ad Campaign Says iShares Bitcoin ETF is Progresscryptonews.com
BlackRock introduces its spot bitcoin ETF under the iShares brand after U.S. regulatory approval of spot bitcoin ETFs.
2024
Broader iShares branding for BlackRock ETFs
[3]BlackRock to rebrand all ETFs as iSharesthefsforum.co.uk
BlackRock announces that its ETF lineup will be branded as iShares to create a more unified product identity.
2022
Future Baller$ campaign
[6]iShares Future Baller$ Campaignsihang.design
iShares works with NBA rookies in a campaign linking long-term investing with long-term career and performance decisions.
2009
Acquisition by BlackRock
[3]BlackRock to rebrand all ETFs as iSharesthefsforum.co.uk
BlackRock acquires Barclays Global Investors, bringing iShares into its asset-management group.
2000
iShares is launched
[1]iShares ETFs by BlackRockishares.com
Barclays Global Investors establishes iShares as an ETF brand.

Products and positioning

A broad, accessible ETF platform combining diversified market exposure, daily tradability, portfolio transparency, and BlackRock’s investment and risk-management capabilities.

U.S. equity index ETF
iShares Core S&P 500 ETF
A core U.S. equity fund designed to provide exposure to large-cap American companies represented by the S&P 500 Index. It is used by investors as a broad portfolio building block rather than as a concentrated single-sector investment.
U.S. fixed-income ETF
iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF
A broad bond-market ETF offering exposure to a diversified portfolio of U.S. investment-grade fixed-income securities. The product is commonly used for portfolio diversification, income objectives, and the fixed-income portion of asset allocation.
Emerging-markets equity ETF
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF
An equity ETF designed to provide diversified exposure to companies in emerging-market economies. It gives investors a single listed vehicle for accessing multiple countries and sectors rather than selecting individual emerging-market securities.
U.S. equity factor ETF · 2001
iShares Russell Mid-Cap Growth ETF
A fund seeking to track an index of mid-capitalization U.S. companies exhibiting growth characteristics. Its strategy combines a defined index methodology with exchange trading and is intended for investors seeking targeted exposure to the mid-cap growth segment.
Digital-asset exchange-traded product · 2024
iShares Bitcoin Trust
A spot bitcoin exchange-traded trust designed to provide investors with market exposure to bitcoin through a listed security held and traded through conventional brokerage infrastructure. It extends the iShares product range beyond traditional stocks, bonds, and commodities.

Marketing campaigns

2025The Market Is Yours
Global
Created with Mother Berlin and New York, the campaign portrayed everyday people in a stock-exchange environment and presented investing as an inclusive activity open to retail investors as well as professionals.
Source
2024Get Your Share of Progress
United States
A minimalist BlackRock campaign promoted the iShares Bitcoin Trust with a message positioning access to bitcoin through an ETF as financial progress and emphasizing use through familiar stock-and-bond investment channels.
Source
2022Expect More with iShares
Europe
Adam & Eve/DDB developed a major European campaign emphasizing the breadth of investor possibilities available through iShares ETFs.
Source
2022Future Baller$
United States
A DDB San Francisco initiative selected NBA rookies as ETF ambassadors and connected strategic, long-term investing with the players’ professional development. The campaign used online video, display, web, and social media aimed partly at younger investors.
Outcome. The campaign’s creative case study reported a 72% increase in iShares awareness, although that result is reported by the campaign creator rather than independently verified here.
Source
2020Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons
United States
A DDB campaign used the fictional character Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons to suggest that iShares ETFs may offer more capability and flexibility than investors initially expect.
Source
2010Keep Evolving
United States
An integrated awareness campaign created with McCann Erickson and MRM Worldwide used television, digital, mobile, and relationship marketing to explain ETF innovation and encourage investors to consider new iShares products.
Source

Brand decisions

2024
Launch of the iShares Bitcoin TrustProduct launch
Background
U.S. approval of spot bitcoin ETFs created a regulated exchange-traded route for investors seeking bitcoin exposure.
Action taken
BlackRock launched a spot bitcoin product under the iShares brand.
Aftermath
The launch expanded iShares into digital-asset investment products and prompted new brand advertising focused on accessibility and progress.
Source
2024
Unification of ETF brandingStrategy
Background
BlackRock’s ETF platform had expanded across index and active strategies, creating a need for a simpler, more recognizable product architecture.
Action taken
BlackRock announced that all of its ETFs would be branded as iShares from October 2024.
Aftermath
The decision reinforced iShares as BlackRock’s principal ETF identity and was intended to help clients navigate the product range.
Source
2009
Integration into BlackRockM&A
Background
BlackRock’s acquisition of Barclays Global Investors brought the iShares ETF business into BlackRock’s global asset-management platform.
Action taken
BlackRock retained and developed iShares as the consumer-facing identity for its ETF offering.
Aftermath
iShares became a central part of BlackRock’s public-markets and distribution strategy.
Source

Recent events

2025
iShares launches The Market Is Yours global campaign[2]The Market Is Yours with iSharesmotherfamily.com
Campaign
Created with Mother Berlin and New York, the campaign presented investing as an opportunity open to ordinary people as well as professional investors and emphasized broader participation in capital markets.
2025
iShares launches a global retail-investor awareness campaign[9]iShares推出面向全球散户投资者的认知campaignfinancialpromoter.co.uk
Campaign
The Market Is Yours campaign used scenes of everyday people in a stock-exchange setting to make investing appear more inclusive and approachable, while employee social-media activity supported the rollout.
2024
BlackRock announces broader use of the iShares name across its ETF range[3]BlackRock to rebrand all ETFs as iSharesthefsforum.co.uk
Other
BlackRock said it would brand all of its ETFs as iShares from October 2024, seeking to simplify how investors navigate its ETF platform and capitalize on the established iShares identity.
2024
iShares Bitcoin Trust begins a new phase of brand activity[4]Bold BlackRock Ad Campaign Says iShares Bitcoin ETF is Progresscryptonews.com
Product launch · Campaign
Following U.S. regulatory approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock promoted its iShares Bitcoin Trust with a minimalist campaign presenting bitcoin access through an ETF as a form of financial progress.

Sources14 sources

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