Close-up: Stuart Elliott in America.(creative agencies)

When is an account review not an account review? It's a question Madison Avenue has found itself confronting more frequently in recent months, much to its dismay and disappointment.

Just as the Watergate scandal brought the phrase 'non-denial denial' into the US lexicon, meaning a statement that seems forthcoming but actually is evasive, so too have clients lately been popularising the non-review review - when a marketer starts to seek another agency to replace the one on its roster, but is as loathe to admit it as Richard Nixon was to 'fess up to the high crimes and misdemeanours that got him impeached.

The latest examples came last week, when the US divisions of Subaru and Cadbury Schweppes put on notice their incumbent creative agencies; the former, Temerlin McClain, after more than ten years, and for the latter, Young & Rubicam, after nine. The r-word was scantly present in the back-and-forth spokespeople engaged in with journalists eager to follow up surprise reports that the accounts were ... what? In review? Up for grabs?

On the loose? Hanging by a thread? Dating after a longer stay in the convent than Audrey Hepburn spent in A Nun's Story?

According to the websites of Adweek and Advertising Age, Subaru of America was 'set to contact agencies', 'looking at every aspect of business', 'looking at what the market has to offer' and 'evaluating other agency options'. And, according to Adweek, Dr Pepper/Seven Up decided to 'reach beyond its roster shop' by asking at least two other agencies for creative ideas for the 7Up brand along with Y&R.

Call it anything you like, the clients seemed to say, only ...