SJSU students and the Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge

There wasn't anything to tell over the Christmas holidays, but now that we're only a couple of weeks away from Super Bowl Sunday it's time to update you on what's happening with the Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge, and our students' participation in it.

First, a recap. Click on the links for more detail:

• Last October a press conference was held at San Jose State University to announce that three SJSU students, Anna Pogosova, Kelly Sherman, and LouLou Quintela, had been named as finalists in a national competition organized by Chevrolet. The local San Jose CBS and NBC television stations sent their reporters to cover the event. The footage that aired on CBS News that night can be viewed here.


• Five teams of students were selected from hundreds of entries, and invited to spend a weekend in Detroit, at General Motors' headquarters. This was no vacation: the students were given a jam-packed schedule that began before daybreak on the Friday. I went with them as their faculty advisor, to lend support, buy them coffee, and take pictures.


• CBS, the network that will air the Super Bowl, sent a production crew to film us all weekend. You'll be seeing that footage in a special that will air on CBS on Super Bowl Sunday. More about that in a minute. First, here's a sample of what went on: The students spent all day Saturday at the offices of Campbell-Ewald, the advertising agency that handles the Chevrolet account. On Sunday, the student teams were each assigned a "war room" and worked on refining their ad concepts. They also toured GM World in the Detroit Renaissance Center.


• On the Monday, all five student teams presented their polished ad concepts to a panel of the top executives from Campbell-Ewald and Chevrolet. Then we all got on a plane and flew home to San Jose, where Kelly, LouLou, and Anna were greeted by a small but enthusiastic welcoming committee. That's when the questions began, but all we were allowed to tell you was, on Super Bowl Sunday everyone in America will know the name San Jose State University. For the 11 students who were finalists in this competition, it's like being a finalist in American Idol.


• All weekend in Detroit, all the students and their faculty advisors were being filmed by CBS. Here's what that was like. And now it's time to tell you where you can see that footage.

GO TO http://www.cbs.com/chevy to watch the reality show about the competition. Episode 1 airs TODAY, January 22. Don't forget to VOTE FOR TEAM SJSU while you're on the CBS website!