Testing branding techniques on species common names to improve their fundraising profile for conservation

In the search for new ways to bring attention to the conservation of neglected species, 28 marketing is increasingly recognized as offering new insights. Brand creation 29 frameworks provide guidelines to create names or symbols for products that will 30 differentiate them from the competition. In this paper, we examine if species common 31 names that follow these guidelines can improve their fundraising potential. Using a 32 novel choice experiment format that employs a budget allocation task, we evaluate if 33 species common names influence donor preferences, where participants were given real 34 money to donate to the species of their choosing. We model the data collected, which is 35 fractional response data, using a Hierarchical Bayesian Dirichlet regression. Our results 36 indicate that while all attributes are positively related to making a donation, Appeal and 37 Familiarity coefficients are statistically significant but Name is not. There were also no 38 statistically significant interactions between Name and any of the socio-economic 39 variables. Our results on the importance of Appeal and Familiarity follow past research 40 but contradict past research on the importance of common names, although the latter 41 looked at common names in isolation. This suggests that species traits should not be 42 tested in isolation when trying to understand the drivers of donations to wildlife 43 conservation, as some traits that may appear important when tested separately become 44 comparatively irrelevant when placed in a more realistic context where respondents 45 have to consider multiple species traits. Future research into the influence of common 46 names should investigate the possible impact of name sentiment as well as whether 47 names with geographic references increase support from donors from those areas.