Wherever the burgeoning excitement around how neuroscience can improve advertising effectiveness leads, NeuroFocus CEO A.K. Pradeep looks to remain a leading navigator. To hear him tell it, that's all because of an in-flight conversation he had after a meeting with an Atlanta-based beverage client that he won't name.

At a time when PBS is under siege by members of Congress looking to eliminate its federal funding, an ad campaign it is associated with might be smart business, but it is ill-timed. While PBS makes the case that government dollars are crucial for its viability, the drawing of attention to other funding streams might be better shelved until the NPR-fueled, anti-public broadcasting tide ebbs.

Forget champagne glasses. Networks had to be toasting with Pepsi cans this week. It's always welcome when a wealthy marketer hits a trouble spot and tries to spend its way back to a recovery. With word that Diet Coke had passed Pepsi to become the number-two soft drink, Pepsi executives are set to follow that playbook.

Ah, the seeds of a salesman! As a college hoopster, Bruce Lefkowitz tried to convince unending skeptics that his underdog University of Pennsylvania team could actually take down the commanding North Carolina Tar Heels. Lefkowitz, now an executive vice president heading sales at FX and the National Geographic Channel, offered an impassioned pre-game breakdown of Penn's chances -- as quixotic as it may have been.

Well into refashioning its morning show, the CBS station in the Windy City still needed a traffic reporter. WBBM-TV had mounted a search through the usual channels. But while candidates were satisfactory, there was nothing too exciting. And the news director grew frustrated. Was there another route?

Direct-response marketers that are unaware of an option offered by the Google TV Ads system may want to give it a look. Since its inception, Google has strived to use the auction-based online market to both simplify the buying-selling process and provide advertisers with superior metrics about how their ads performed. For direct response (DR) marketers, the coveted metric is how many calls a particular spot - one as short as 30 seconds or a longer infomercial -- generates.

Advertisers need sports content, which is mostly consumed live, maybe more than ever. And marketers are unwilling to run afoul of the leagues, which is actually good for the networks carrying their games. The advertisers may be upset about the rash of concussions in football and hockey, but they aren't going anywhere.

Sometimes the right combination of words can wake up the seemingly sleepy panel at a media conference. Or kick-start complaints from a TV pressure group, if you call a show "Good Christian Bitches." Or just get Charlie Sheen to open his tiger-blood mouth and watch the sparks fly.

The crazy-like-a-fox Morgan Spurlock, known best for his McDonald's-assaulting turn in "Super Size Me," dreamed up the idea for a documentary about product placement after pondering a far-too-overt Nissan integration in NBC's "Heroes." He set out to make an exposé about product placement, financed entirely by product placement. It comes out next month and is at once hilarious and maybe a bit scary.

Alcohol marketers and networks owned by Disney, Viacom and News Corp. surely want to find the right balance on alcohol advertising and young people. Maybe the FTC can spark a productive dialogue. Maybe the various players will just engage in one on their own before the bureaucratic wheels churn slowly.