Inspiration in the everyday: creative duo turn 'bored commuters into boardmasters' for Skate Hub

A freelance duo have been making waves in London through a series of homespun, earned campaigns, so Creative Moment caught up with creators Diksha Yadav and Liz Eisen to find out more...

Yadav and Eisen’s obsession with finding inspiration in the everyday has led to campaigns including a stunt for ‘Skate Hub’, a grassroots crowd-funded academy, which saw the public engage in a guerrilla stunt to ‘turn bored commuters into boardmasters’.

The pair also collaborated on ‘Will Marry for Work’, a provocative stunt outside Parliament to highlight the broken UK immigration system, which prioritises bureaucracy over genuine talent and contribution —a matter very close to the duo, as Diksha is currently facing it.

We caught up with the pair over mochas and a cheeky pilsner.

Creative Moment (CM): How did you first get involved with the client? Did you approach them, or did they come to you?

Liz: It started organically. We wanted to attach ourselves to a brand that was up and coming and thus open to taking risks, and discovered Skate Hub London, opening in Vauxhall. It looked cool, and we thought, "This is small enough that we could make something real out of it, rather than just pitching an idea that stays as a mockup in our book."

So, we reached out to them with a concept. They were just opening, and the guy who runs it, Mark Nolan, is an ex-skater who's passionate about keeping the skate community alive. He understood the culture and wanted to support it, especially for underrepresented groups like girls and older people in skating.

CM: What was the idea, and how did it come about?

Diksha: The core idea was to create an experience where people could feel like skaters on the London Underground. We noticed that balancing on a carriage without holding the handrail uses the same core muscles as skateboarding. It clicked when I saw someone stumbling on the Tube, and it reminded me of learning to skateboard as a kid. We thought, "What if we put a sticker or a mock-up of a skateboard on the Tube floor, so people could stand on it and feel like they're skating?".

It was about making that connection; everyone's been on a Tube, and it's a universal experience. We developed the specifics, like the design and branding, later, but the concept was clear from the start: make people feel like skaters in an everyday setting.

CM: How did you get the project off the ground and gain traction?

Liz: We bootstrapped it. We're used to working in agencies with PR teams handling press releases, but here, we were on our own. We were our own CDs, accounts, production team and PR! We reached out to videographers to capture the stunt. On the first day, we worked with Mike Walker, who was proactive and thick-skinned. He helped us push through rejections when we were pitching the idea to passersby. 

On the second day, we worked with Henrique Chambel, who has a non-creative day job but studied filmmaking and wanted to build his portfolio. He was amazing, calm and focused, even when we were panicking. We filmed over two days, capturing real people interacting with the skateboard sticker on the Tube.

Interviewer: Did you need permission to do this on the Tube, or did you just go for it?

Diksha: It was a bit rebellious, but the client, being an ex-skater, was fine with that approach. Also since they’re a fairly small organisation, having capital for TfL licenses was tough. 

We knew it was risky, but we wanted it to feel organic and real. 

People could interact with the sticker naturally, and that raw energy helped it go viral. We don't recommend doing it this way, but we got lucky and it worked out.

CM: Do you always look for campaignable ideas in everyday life?

Liz: Yeah, we're always observing. Before the Tube shoot, we saw an opportunity with a trans rights march happening in Parliament Square and only had 24 hours to do something disruptive. We're big allies of the LGBT community, so we brainstormed a quick idea. Pink and blue represent the gender binary, so we rebranded Squashies Drumsticks that are bubblegum flavored to read ‘Squashing Transphobia’ and made signs to go with it that read "Eat the Gender Binary”, to spark interaction at the march. 

It was spontaneous, but it worked because it tapped into those human moments that make people engage and the response we got just made us want to do more. This is what I love about us as a team. We think of something and just psych each other up to go out and do it!

CM: How do you ensure your ideas resonate with the skate community and stay authentic?

Diksha: The client being an ex-skater helped. Skaters can be protective of how they're represented, and we were careful to keep the campaign true to the community's integrity. We wanted it to feel honest, not like an advert exploiting the culture. The client's buy-in gave us confidence to push forward, and seeing people smile, whether they were on the "board" or just watching from their seats, showed us it resonated. It made people feel like kids again, which is what good campaigns do: tap into something universal and emotional.

CM: Are others in the industry doing similar things, pitching stunts like this to clients?

Diksha: Yeah, lots of creatives are doing this, but success depends on how much you put yourself out there. We were talking to a creative director who, during COVID, created "break glass in case of emergency" boxes filled with essentials like toilet paper and onions, when groceries were scarce. It went viral because it hit the zeitgeist perfectly and made all the major papers. He didn't expect it to blow up, but it shows you just have to do it. You never know how an idea will be received until you try.

CM: What's your background, and how has it shaped your approach?

Liz: We both studied at ad schools, I went to School of Communication Arts taught by Marc Lewis, and Diksha went to University of Lincoln with Patrick Collister as her mentor, drilling into us that "opportunity is now here and to make our own luck." They pushed us to create work that culturally resonates, not just adverts for the ad world. Marc would say, "I want to see you on the front page of a newspaper or Channel 4 News." That stuck with us. We learned to think beyond traditional formats like posters and embrace modern, shareable media, stuff that becomes a meme or sparks conversation. 

It's about making ideas exist in the real world, not just on paper.

CM: Are there any campaigns that inspire you or stand out as favourites?

Diksha: One I love is a Super Bowl 2023 advert by streaming service Tubi. It was designed to deceive Super Bowl viewers into believing someone had accidentally changed the channel during the game, making viewers aware of its existence in the cheekiest way possible. It was brilliant because it used the medium, TV, in a way that felt immersive and surprising. It broke the fourth wall.

Liz: For me, the club stamps that the BBC did last year to remind people to bring their ID to the club were a genius use of media, which I love. Also I grew up obsessed with ‘Trigger Happy TV’ and I think that's where my anarchic situationist and surreal approach to campaigns stemmed from!