Which rock band on this planet is cooler than U2? There might be a few, but U2 is certainly a pretty cool band — and now some of that cool has rubbed off on Bank of America.

Bank of America exclusively sponsored U2’s premier of “Invisible” during the Super Bowl XLVIII. The effort included free downloads of the song for a 24-hour period. While the cost of the sponsorship to BofA was estimated at $8 million to $10 million, the buzz BofA got was significant. Firstly, Super Bowl XLVIII scored the fifth-highest TV rating of all Super Bowls. Second, U2’s hashtag for the song, #newU2song, had more than 1.7 million impressions on Twitter during the week of Feb. 14, according to Keyhole.co. By comparison, #bankofamerica had around 450,000.

But those are just metrics. The sponsorship officially supported [RED], which is the charity run by U2 lead singer Bono’s aiming to treat and cure AIDS/HIV in Africa. Bank of America was able to put its name in the [BRACKETS], and that pushes the BofA brand into territory that is decidedly different than that occupied by the bank during the credit crisis. That’s certainly a banker’s definition of cool.

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