Toby Talbot has made a huge contribution to New Zealand’s advertising industry in the past 20 years. As well as creating some of New Zealand’s most loved ads, Toby has long been a champion of young creative talent, launching the careers of scores of men and women over the years, many of whom have gone on to great things around the world.

Originally from the UK, Toby spent his first eight years in New Zealand at Colenso BBDO, putting the agency on the map creatively, before moving to Saatchi Auckland for two years where he was part of a stellar department that enjoyed unprecedented creative success for the Saatchi name in New Zealand.

Then Toby got his first big ECD role at DDB Auckland.

He turned the agency into a power house within the DDB network over the following five years. When he left in 2011, the agency was number 1 in New Zealand.

After brief spells as ECD of Y&R in London and TBWA Auckland, Toby moved to Australia and returned to the DDB network. As CCO of DDB Sydney he enjoyed two very successful years, culminating in DDB being crowned the most awarded Australian agency at Cannes in 2016 with 12 Lions.

Toby returning to unfinished business in 2017: to put Saatchi New Zealand back at the top.

He has been named Campaign Asia’s Creative of the Year for Australia and New Zealand and won Campaign Brief Agency of the Year ten times across three agencies.

Toby has two passions outside of advertising, fly fishing and his 1973 VW Kombi. Sadly, neither has been getting much attention in recent years. Blame advertising for that.