What's in a name? The use of birds in Aotearoa New Zealand business names

Abstract

The use of animal symbolism or names is a common practice in advertising and branding. Businesses use animals to project attributes of their brand and thus contribute to public familiarity with the species. In New Zealand, birds are arguably the most prominent animals in national conservation priorities and citizen science activities. This fact reflects New Zealand's unique biogeography and the historic lack of terrestrial mammals. Here we explore the frequency with which bird names have been used in business branding over the last 70 years and examine the trend in the relative use of native, non-native or generic names. We quantified the use of bird names in New Zealand businesses using the New Zealand Business Register, which provides details of ca. 1.6 million businesses. We identified the most frequent generic and specific names used between 1950 and 2022. We further explored associations between specific bird groups and business sectors. The prevalence of bird names in New Zealand business branding was generally low, with an increase from approximately 0.3% in the 1950s, trebling to about 1% of all registered businesses in recent years. The representation of native species within businesses that use bird names has increased from approximately 25% in the 1950s to more than 50% today. Aside from the kiwi, the most common bird names used by businesses were generic, for example, eagle, swan, or falcon. However, of those names that could be related to a known species, 83% referred to a species native to New Zealand. We detected non-random associations between bird groups and specific business sectors. For example, raptors were overrepresented in business names from the construction, public administration and safety sectors. We provide an empirical case study on the commercially oriented usage of animal names for business branding. The increased use of bird names over time and associations between specific bird groups and business sectors may indicate socio-cultural attributes linked to particular bird characteristics. The identification of trends and patterns could be the basis for further investigation into relationships between a species' familiarity and public perceptions, with consequent relevance to species conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.