Claudia Schiffer on the cover of Vogue magazine wearing a red velvet dress and jacket by Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis with Patricia Underwood cap, choker and rhinestone bracelet by Marie Ferra, and beaded bracelets by Erickson Beamon. (Photo by Arthur Elgort/Conde Nast via Getty Images)
Conde Nast via Getty Images
Conde Nast’s Vogue recently released its famed “September Issue.” Long viewed as the bible of high fashion, Vogue’s September edition marks the rollout of fall and winter designs. The various photo layouts of the new designs unsurprisingly attract a lot of would-be buyers, and by extension lots of glossy ads meant to win the business of those buyers.
Notable about the page count of the September Issue is that it reached a high of 916 pages (over 4 pounds) in 2012. No wonder Conde Nast employees, and Vogue employees in particular, were living and working so well: their product attracted staggering amounts of ad dollars.
The story of Vogue and its stupendous success rates thought given the news this week that a federal judge declined to break up Google’s advertising technology business. More specifically, Vogue instructs on the matter.
That’s because the size of September Issues has shrunk dramatically. The most recent release isn’t 900 pages, rather it’s roughly 350. So, what’s changed.
The answer is Google and other technology companies. While magazines and newspapers were formerly the only game in town when it came to reaching a specific demographic, they had weaknesses.
To some degree print media and their advertisers were flying a bit blind. Enter Google et al.
They brought clarity where there formerly wasn’t enough. They could tell advertisers what consumers were searching for, when, not to mention they could report to them which products and services rated long looks from users, and which ones were skipped. And in tracking clicks, they could provide advertisers with a much better sense of the audience most suited to their products, along with arming them with crucial information that would make it possible for them to better anticipate their needs and wants.
Is it at all surprising that advertising dollars have migrated away from print? The question answers itself, and it also answers the question about Google being a “monopoly.” Not at all.
A better way to view Google is through the prism of Vogue and its September Issue. As evidenced by the substantial decline in the size of the latter, it’s evident Google broke a monopoly to the betterment of advertisers and customers alike.
Lest readers forget, advertisers would prefer not to target those who aren’t interested in what they’re selling, while would-be buyers don’t desire junk mail, spam calls, or ad excess of the kind that doesn’t reflect who they are, what they want, and what they’ll eventually want. As opposed to a “monopoly,” Google, Meta, X, and others are the solution to advertising that wasted corporate and customer money alike.
Is Google an advertising monopoly? While media accounts of this week’s decision indicated that the Judge overseeing the case desired “behavioral remedies” from Google, there was once again no breakup order. Still, the “behavioral remedies” part of the ruling signals the Judge’s belief that Google possesses excess market power.
Which is a mistake. And the mistake can be found in Google’s success when it’s come to disrupting the ad market for the much better.
Google has been rewarded in the marketplace for its innovations as its valuation attests. Which is the point. Google’s remarkable success ensures the very competition that antitrust officials want. Said another way, improved as advertising is, it’s poised to get better as intrepid investors fund competition meant to capture market share by improving customer offerings.
Google’s already done this before. See Vogue yet again. What’s dominant can’t last in a free market. Antitrust is excess.
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