Charismatic mammalian megafauna: public empathy and marketing strategy.(Statistical Data Included)

Introduction

Animals often are used as evocative visual symbols in the promotion phase of product marketing (Margulies, Wilkie), probably because they are a familiar part of all cultures. Such symbols, or "pictorial metaphors" (Phillips), are used to create and project an image, and implicitly communicate information. Because people easily relate to mammals, they may be used in marketing efforts to a greater extent than other vertebrates such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, or birds. Mammals, like all animals, are classified on the basis of a taxonomic hierarchy from most general to most specific, with each higher level encompassing the levels below it. The most general level is that of Kingdom, which is Animalia, which includes all the nine Phyla of animals. Within a given phylum, there are one or more Classes (fish, amphibins, reptiles, birds, and mammals are all in separate classes). Classes contain Orders; each order contains one or more Families, each family contains one or more Genera, and each genus has one or more Species. Each of these hierarchical categories is referred to as a taxon (plural=taxa). We analyzed the frequency with which different mammalian groups (taxa) occurred on beer and cider bottles from breweries throughout the world to determine trends in the taxa depicted. We expected to find …