At the 2014 Newfronts, Buzzfeed made a big splash with its plans to dive headlong into branded video. It was a well-timed announcement; video would soon be dominating Facebook’s news feeds as well as other fast growing apps like Snapchat.

It was also an ambitious add-on to Buzzfeed’s offering to brands and a major piece of its strategy to create something that has long eluded native advertising: scale.

Eighteen months on, it’s clear Buzzfeed is making progress while still facing significant challenges in video. The high cost and labor-intensive nature of video production has complicated Buzzfeed’s ability to scale the business.