CNN-Funded Great Big Story Explores Big Ideas With Hewlett-Packard Enterprise

Four months after its launch, Great Big Story is showing off its first wave of branded content. The CNN-funded news site, which is looking to compete with social-conscious publications like Vice, has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise launched an eight-part series called The Dreamers, which uses data to explore topics like cosmology, animal conservation, and food science.

The Dreamers is driven by interviews with exceptional individuals who are using numbers in innovative ways to change their respective industries. The first episode, for example, profiles the the scientists who are exploring deep space at the ALMA observatory in Chile.

What’s most interesting about The Dreamers is the blended nature of the partnership between Great Big Story and HPE. As Variety notes

, six of the series’ eight episodes are original Great Big Story productions, which the other two were created specifically for HPE. With that approach, Great Big Story offers a lot of flexibility to its partners.

“We are not just trying to shove any old brand into a native ad,” Great Big Story co-founder Chris Berend told Variety. “We are very much focused on our audience and delivering storytelling to our audience. We think brands can be a huge part of that.”

New episodes of The Dreamers will roll out over the next two months, with the final installment arriving on April 29th.