Travis Oberlander

Who is this for?

Travis Oberlander builds in-house video production for DTC brands. He joined Grüns in December 2024 with no production department and left in July 2026 with a system running $1M a year in production spend, 118 crew and contractors, and 300+ transactions a year across 4 sub-brands. He brought the cost of a 2-3 minute direct-response anchor ad down by about two-thirds versus the outside agency, to roughly $30K. That system now runs inside Unilever, which closed its acquisition of Grüns in June 2026. His method is a cost ladder. Brands test hooks, value props, and calls to action in cheap formats first, then put $30K-$50K budgets only behind proven winners. Every shoot captures multiple hooks and CTAs, bundles performance ads, organic social, and stills into one production, and gets cut into 8-10 assets. Nearly everything he made at Grüns was built for performance, mostly on Meta and YouTube, with cutdowns adapted for ad-supported streaming. Before brand work, Travis spent 15 years in film and television. He was a story producer on true crime series for Netflix, Hulu, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, and on National Geographic's Life Below Zero franchise. In 2013 he produced the feature film Layover for $6,000; it played major festivals and landed a distribution deal. He was Executive Producer on He Went That Way, a $2.2M feature starring Jacob Elordi and Zachary Quinto that premiered at Tribeca in 2023. He knows what every crew role costs and which ones a brand can cut. Book a call with Travis to: 1. Stand up in-house video production 2. Cut your cost per video without losing quality 3. Build a test-then-scale ladder for video ads 4. Scope and budget a direct-response anchor ad 5. Choose between an agency, freelancers, or a hire

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