She started a (really) different kind of condom company

Talia Frankel was no stranger to tragedy.

As a photographer for the United Nations and Red Cross, she was usually heading for the airport within 30 minutes of a natural disaster.

She covered earthquakes, fires, floods and tsunamis — focusing on everything from the on-the-ground damage to the efficacy of relief efforts.

Then, in 2008, she was assigned to photograph women and girls with HIV/AIDS, the leading killer of women of reproductive age, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It was the first time she documented a preventable disaster.

“It’s not easy to see women and girls dying of AIDS…to document women’s bodies and what happens to them. I think that really shook me,” Frankel said. “It’s the challenge of every photojournalist to channel the anger that arises in documenting injustice in a productive way.”

Six years later, 29-year-old Frankel is running San Francisco-based L. Condoms, one of the few female-owned companies in the condom industry. Her products are now sold in 800 retail locations in California and are available for one-hour delivery in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles — a service they launched on Valentine’s Day of this year.

The contraceptives are made from natural ingredients without harmful additives, sourcing higher-quality latex without the proteins that cause itching. The excess latex? They up-cycle it to make biodegradable flip-flops.

And in a buy-one-give-one model popularized by companies such as TOMS Shoes and Warby Parker, her company is funneling thousands of condoms into Africa where the HIV/AIDS crisis is at a fever pitch. She’s even creating jobs in the process.

No Trojan men, please

L. Condom’s marketing is a far cry from the hyper-masculinity and off-to-war-we-go terminology of competitors such as Trojan. And yet it’s not girl-ified either.

L. Condom’s popular “A Call to Good Men” ad, which has more than 400,000 views on YouTube, takes a friendly jab at the manly man ads of the big condom companies, instead lauding the sensitive man who isn’t deterred by feelings or frightened by a healthy lifestyle.

The good man, as portrayed in the ad, cares about organic vegetables (cue handsome man pulling bunch of carrots out of the ground), antioxidants (cue handsome man biting into a whole grapefruit, peel and all) and biodegradable, low-carbon recycled materials (cue handsome man holding up a package of L.Condoms and winking).

As for the “L” in the name — well, it stands for whatever you want it to stand for: “Love, lust, life,” Frankel says. “Some men think of ‘large.’ It just kind of works.”

Capitalizing on a trend

In recent years, the international community has looked to innovations in condoms to help slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenge Explorations (GCE) initiative lauded advancements in the consumer packaged goods arena.

In June, the nonprofit awarded two GCE Phase 1 grants of $100,000 each to individuals developing novel female and male condoms. One group, led by Mache Seibel of HealthRock, is developing an air-infused female condom that could be faster and easier to insert. The second group, led by Robert Gorkin, of the University of Wollongong in Australia, is developing male condoms with latex alternatives that could increase sensation.

That’s why experts believe the social consciousness of her company, which is now seeking venturing funding could make her business extremely attractive to investors.

“There are markets, there are investors, there are stakeholders that (the model) is extremely attractive to,” says Patti Greene, the entrepreneurial studies chair at Babson College and researcher for The Diana Project, which recently released the first comprehensive look at women in venture capital since 1999.

And even more importantly, Greene added, “Those business owners are doing it because they believe in it. I think we get away from the idea that business is very personal.”

Supply is just the beginning

Having worked in third-world nations before, Frankel knows what the areas need in terms of relief and contraception — and it’s not a “just drop off condoms and hope for the best” model, she says.

Distributing them effectively is a complex process that changes based on the country and the role of women in its economy. But regardless of how, women are encouraged to get involved in the process, and that can be very empowering.

In Uganda, for example, women are trained to be health care providers and trained to educate others through peer-to-peer distribution at a low cost.

“They’re now breadwinners in their communities and have more of a say in the day-to-day decision-making (of the home),” Frankel said.

But in Swaziland, where the HIV/AIDS rate is highest in the world, the company’s approach is different. The women, many of whom are HIV positive, are weak — too weak to focus on sales and distribution. So there the women work on designing the packages and repackaging them.

“That’s their income-generating activity,” Frankel says.” And by taking part in that activity, there’s a sense of pride. And they’re involved in an approach that reduces the stigma of the product themselves.”

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