LONDON — Communications agency Cow has been appointed by sex-positive adult entertainment brand Erika Lust on a retainer covering media relations, creative campaigns and live events.

Barcelona-based Erika Lust Films includes subscription-based online platforms Else Cinema, XConfessions, The Store and Lust Cinema. Cow will also be working with Erika Lust on The Porn Conversation, a non-profit project that offers free and accessible tools for educators and families to talk to young people about sex, beginning with the topic of porn.

Swedish filmmaker and company co-founder Erika Lust (pictured) broke into the adult entertainment industry in 2004 with independent adult cinema that aims to go beyond traditional gender roles and stereotypes. Lust asserts the importance of “the female gaze” and having women writing and directing adult films. In 2021, her firm released ‘Wash Me’, the first explicit film to deal with the topic of sex and breast cancer, written and directed by Rebecca Stewart, who had breast cancer herself.

Erika Lust’s director of communications and content Eva Garcia said: “Our mission is to celebrate sex-positive culture. We do this through cinematic porn, educational initiatives and digital content that embrace empowering perspectives on porn, sexuality, and pleasure. We were impressed with Cow’s experience in this field, how they understood our brand values and very excited by their disruptive and bold creative approach”.

For the past three years Cow has been developing campaigns for Swedish sexual intimate hygiene brand Intimina, including a partnership with Pantone to create Period Red. Last month, Cow also launched the world’s first crotch sponsorship with London Colney FC for sexual pleasure brand Lelo to normalise conversations about male sex toys.

Cow creative director Mark Perkins said: “We applied the same audience lens to ethical porn as we would to ethical fashion, food or travel and our approach of playfulness, provocation and purpose hit the spot. We are excited to be coming together to create taboo-busting work that puts sex-positive porn into the mainstream conversation.”