When I first took over running the branded creative department, native content was limited to light product placement for food brands using recipe based content only. At the time, BuzzFeed believed that the audience would not respond unless brands were almost hidden within the editorial content. This limited our ability to work with brands outside of the CPG category. Using our own audience insights and marketing tools such as MetrixLab and POP Research, we found even at this level, consumers were not recognizing brand value. I changed the creative strategy and aesthetic to allow for better brand KPI integration and tapped into content that served food culture, product function and the audience's desire to watch videos that were simply entertaining. This led to deals with companies such as Nike, Google, Samsung, Diesel, Hulu and many entertainment partners.