Uncharismatic animals are animals that have low likeability due to factors including their physical appearance and people have negative emotional responses from past experiences towards that animal. While charismatic animals are described as being cute and often are larger well-known animals. Both charismatic and uncharismatic animals are experiencing biodiversity loss, however, often the media highlights the charismatic animals over the uncharismatic. Aotearoa New Zealand’s charismatic species are generally birds, who receive more funding from the Department of Conservation than the generally uncharismatic invertebrates, fish, and reptiles, many of which are equally endangered. To fight biodiversity loss amongst uncharismatic animals, we need to promote their popularity to the public, one such way of doing this is via social media.

A social media analysis of Forest & Bird, Zealandia, and WWF NZ’s Instagram pages highlighted how some categories are more likely to be posted than others. There is a bias by these organisations to post photos of birds over less charismatic categories such as invertebrates. A further analysis using “likes” as a form of engagement and comparing this engagement with animal categories, found that for Forest & Bird, their audience engaged more with birds over fish, fish over marine mammals, and reptiles over marine mammals. Zealandia’s audience had higher engagement with birds when compared with reptiles and invertebrates. While for WWF NZ, the degree of engagement by their audience did not vary significantly according to the animal categories featured in the post. Together these data highlight the relationship between social media engagement and animal categories and highlight the need for new social media strategies to promote less charismatic animals.

Further, I conducted a survey that explored the attractiveness and “willingness to donate” to uncharismatic animals. Based on previous research into animal colour tone, I manipulated the colour tones of photographs of animals to cool, warm, or black and white. There was a significant difference between the velvet worm’s attractiveness, with the cool-toned preferred. The black and white photograph was preferred over the other three categories for the grasshopper. Finally, the unmanipulated photograph was significantly preferred over the black and white, and warm, and cool over black and white for the cicada. No significant data was found from the “willingness to donate" questions. No clear conclusion from this survey was found; however, colouration patterns could be seen and should be investigated in future research.

The creative component of this thesis involved a social media campaign for Forest & Bird, highlighting New Zealand’s ‘Creepy Creatures’. It included videos, posters, and a magazine article, to promote uncharismatic animals on a New Zealand NGO Instagram page. The competition had over 50 entries and the created material was seen by thousands, highlighting that when focused on, uncharismatic animals can be made popular by New Zealand NGOs.