Whenever Nicola Mendelsohn scrolls through Instagram, chances are an advert related to weddings will appear in her feed. Her daughter’s getting married, after all, and they often swap ideas about the big day. The app is designed to pick up on such things and serve up relevant ads.
As a top executive at Meta Platforms, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, Mendelsohn is responsible for the company’s relationships with heavyweight advertisers — and ensuring they promote whatever they’re selling on its platforms. All Meta wants, she says, is to provide people with “advertising that they want to see, and give them the opportunity to either hear from brands that they like, or to discover new brands”.
Meta built an advertising business with annual sales of