analysis—which aligns better with Nike’s internal studies—shows otherwise. He convincingly demonstrated that most of the money previously invested into Meta ads was simply reallocated to other social media and display ads. Id. at 10489:10–10495:9 (Whinston) (discussing UPXD106 at 13–14, 16). In fact, Nike’s search ads spend barely increased during the boycott. Id.; see also UPX2076 at 152 (as a percentage of Nike’s overall ad spend, search grew from 48% to 51% and then returned to 50% post-pause, a minor change).
Google further contends that U.S. Plaintiffs’ search ads market fails because U.S. Plaintiffs have presented no econometric modeling on pricing (e.g., a SSNIP test). GTB at 21–23; GCL ¶ 22; see Sysco, 113 F. Supp. 3d at 33–34 (describing a SSNIP test).[1] But as previously discussed, supra Section II.A, such modeling is not required to define a market.
Unique Production Facilities. U.S. Plaintiffs contend that “the uniqueness of production facilities present in the general search services market appl[ies] in the Search Ads market.” UPFOF ¶ 440. That is not quite right. U.S. Plaintiffs’ search advertising market includes search ads on SVPs, so the two proposed markets do not fully overlap. Still, search ads production, regardless of the platform, is characterized by certain common components. A platform must “(1) match Search Ads to consumers’ real-time queries, (2) pull those ads into the relevant auction, (3) determine which ads in the auction will be shown, (4) determine where on the [results page] the shown ads will be positioned, and (5) calculate the price for each ad shown, should it be clicked on.” Id. ¶ 441. Display and social ads are produced differently. FOF ¶¶ 198–199, 204, 206.
- ↑ U.S. Plaintiffs contend that that the pricing evidence relevant to the general search text ads market should be considered as persuasive in the search advertising market as well, because text ads make up 65% of the search ads market. See UPFOF ¶ 589 (citing Tr. at 4797:2-14 (Whinston)). As the court can define a search advertising market without reliance on such evidence, it discusses the relevance of text ads-specific evidence to the search ads market during the monopoly power inquiry. See infra Section III.A.2.
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