WORLD: STUART ELLIOTT IN AMERICA.

Could it be, at long last, 2004? That wonderful year that Sir Martin Sorrell has promised for so long would bring the climbing out of the bath?

(Now that's an image to savour: Sir Martin, covered with bubbles, emerging from a tub surrounded by cases of Lux soap, Sunsilk shampoo and all those other wonderful personal-care products made by the Unilever client. Question: is there a WPP agency with a towel account on the roster? A washcloth?)

Indeed, the new year seems to be ushering in a decided change in outlook and attitude along Madison Avenue. Part of it is the belief that conditions genuinely are improving, particularly, as forecasters such as John Perriss at ZenithOptimedia and Robert Coen at Universal McCann pointed out last month, more businesses are beginning to signal they are willing to resume spending in realms such as advertising.

If those laggards can join the stalwart handful of marketers that has been keeping the ad industry from performing even more dismally - car-makers, fast-food chains, packaged-food companies, movie studios, brewers - a recovery might finally arrive after years of stop-and-stutter, false-start results.

And part of the change in the zeitgeist is attributable to the idea that agency executives, keen on sniffing out the latest trends, are starting to agree that gloom and doom are so, like, last year. Optimism is the new black, to paraphrase that arbiter of style Diana Vreeland. And yet, Americans, for all their native upbeat cheerfulness, remain reluctant to shower themselves with congratulatory praise, even if Perriss is predicting an increase in US adspend of 5.1 per cent this year from 2003 and Coen is forecasting an even better gain of 6.9 per ...