Tumisha Balogun is the co-founder of Tag, a social-first agency helping brands to reach new audiences with innovative storytelling and cultural immersion. Guided by a passion to build meaningful work for the next generation, Tumisha and her team have worked with big brands like Spotify, Nike, adidas and V&A East, leveraging the "small but meaningful" force of their creativity.
With a strong perspective on youth culture, Tumisha is passionate about mentorship and improving pathways into the creative industries for young and underrepresented talent. As part of our 5 Questions series, I caught up with Tumisha to discuss industry icks, the value of touching grass and the reality of agency life.
What’s your biggest industry ick?
Honestly? Think pieces. Specifically, the ones that appear the second something comes out. I don't mind a genuine strategic perspective that still has value. But with AI, there's been this explosion of post-rationalised genius. When a campaign lands, and within 48 hours, everyone's explaining exactly why it was always going to work or fail. ChatGPT has made everyone an expert in hindsight.
The problem is it's all dissection, no challenge. Nobody's asking the harder questions: why did this actually work, could it be replicated, what did it cost to get there, who got left out of the story? Everyone's just confidently narrating outcomes they had nothing to do with.
Everybody's dissecting. Nobody's challenging me, and I am part of the problem, lol.
What does staying relevant mean to you?
Touching grass, honestly.
Getting off the feed and actually experiencing things. Having opinions that aren't shaped by my algorithm. Going out, speaking to people but more importantly, listening to them and learning from them. I've been trying to people-watch more lately, just observing without an agenda.
Relevance for me isn't about being across every trend. It's about staying curious and staying present. The most interesting cultural insights I've ever had didn't come from a report – they came from a conversation or a room I was actually in.
What do you think the creative industry will look like in 10 years?
I have thoughts on what will change and what I hope changes.
What I think: the channels brands measure will change drastically, and the agencies still anchored to traditional media as their main output will really struggle. Who is actually watching TV? And why are we still making 60-second ads and then just repurposing them on social media? That model is already creaking in 10 years. It'll be hard to defend entirely.
What I hope: that the people who've been holding the keys for a long time start making genuine space for new talent. Not internships, not mentorship programmes with no real pipeline, actual seats at the table. Creative directors, strategists, and decision-makers who actually reflect the audience's brands are desperately trying to reach. That shift is long overdue.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever ignored?
“Study the big agencies, they've done what you're trying to achieve”
But we never started as a traditional agency, so trying to fit ourselves into that box was never going to work. The structure, the model, the way they pitch, hire, and operate it wasn't built for what we were trying to do. And spending time trying to reverse-engineer it just pulled us away from the thing that actually made us interesting.
What would be the name of your autobiography?
Agency life isn't sexy. But I am.
And I mean that seriously, sexy for me is a feeling, not an aesthetic. Lately, I've been sitting with some hard questions about whether it's all worth it. I didn't come up through a traditional agency, I don't win enough work, I don't always fit the mould of what this industry thinks an agency founder should look like.
But the more I sit with that, the more I realise it can be whatever I want it to be. I tell young people all the time, don't start an agency. It's a lot of work, you don't always get to do the things you want to do, and nobody warns you about the unglamorous bits.
And yet. I'm learning to reframe. The agency landscape is hard and difficult to crack, but I can bring the sexiness to it, and I need to really try to stop conforming. You don't wait for the industry to make space for you. You just keep going until the thing you're building becomes undeniable.
Discover more about Tag and check out our recent interview with Tumisha, uncovering why brands need to change their approach to Gen Z branding.
