Strategic analysis
Dissecting a Print Magazine

Vogue is not a magazine. Vogue is an advertising company. Not even Google displays as many ads as they do.

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Written by Thomas Baekdal on October 6, 2011

This article is a slightly rewritten version of the second chapter of my upcoming book called "The Shift: From print to digital ...and beyond." Sign-up for the newsletter to be notified when it comes out (in about two weeks.) Or sign-up for Baekdal Plus and you will get the book for free when it comes out.

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Back in May 2011 I dissected an episode of Mythbusters in order to help you understand just how good the TV industry is at keeping you glued to your screen. Basically they start by showing you something valuable, before they interrupt you with ads. And, they make sure that their most valuable object is spread out to "force" people to watch the whole show (and thus be exposed to all the commercials.)

The TV industry is really good at this. Just like the retail industry are masters at organizing their stores.

But what about the print industry? Are print magazines doing the same thing? What are the tactics behind it? Can we learn something from print that we can take with us to the new world of media?

To find out, I took two issues of the French version of Vogue Magazine and dissected it. I dissected the October issue from 2009 and the October issue from 2011. I divided it up into the front-page, info pages, content pages, photo pages and advertising.

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