Rory Gibson

Rory is a truly unlikely disruptor in the media industry. Beginning his career as a media buyer and account manager for the likes of PepsiCo, he now uses everything he’s learned to fight for children’s health and their right not to be targeted by junk food products.

Like many previous winners, Rory began his career in media agencies. Including OMD UK and creative agencies, before going client-side at Beckham's esports organisation. That experience built his understanding of how media shapes society and specifically children.

Now, he is Senior Manager of Brand Strategy and Narrative at Bite Back, the youth-led movement founded by Jamie Oliver, where he applies his industry knowledge to challenge its targeting of children by empowering youth voices.

In 2025, he strategised and led #CommercialBreak, Bite Back's first mass media campaign. He rooted it in a creative media strategy to plan and buy tactical outdoor advertising spaces across South London to deny it explicitly to junk brands. 

When OOH media owners revoked approval under advertiser pressure, Rory turned the censorship into the story. The result was the biggest moment in Bite Back's history. 17 million people reached, 70 pieces of national media, the front page of the Observer and a profile in The Mirror, social media followers doubled from 45,000 to 90,000 in days.

The buzz created a real impact. Youth campaigners were invited to meet Health Secretary Wes Streeting, which helped push the UK government towards implementing protections on junk food advertising, a legislation Bite Back had pursued for six years.

The campaign won the SMK award for Best Campaign and was highly commended for Best Creative Comms by Comms2Point0. Rory’s work proves that the media industry's most powerful skills can be used to help the most vulnerable in society.