Caution is the rule in uncertain times.(the UK advertising market)(Brief Article)

The aftershocks from New York are starting to shake the foundations of British advertising, which is only now getting its head around the long-term implications of 11 September.

First, the Italian network Testa abandons its plans to invest in a UK agency start-up, blaming the uncertainty of markets destablised by the terrorist attacks. Then Omnicom reacts to the crisis confronting in-flight publishing by merging Premier Media Partners, the publisher of British Airways' in-flight magazines, with the contract publisher Redwood. Just to compound the gloom, Tempus, the media group, cuts jobs in the wake of a downturn in business confidence.

And this may only be the start of the bad news precipitated by a combination of economic and political uncertainty. The inertia is bound to be fuelled by the mixed messages coming from consumers. While a European Commission survey detects a modest decline in UK consumer confidence since the attacks, a MORI poll suggests economic optimism has fallen to its lowest level since the early 80s.

Because advertisers and their agencies are unable to gauge accurately the consumers' collective mood, ...