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Education plays an important role in developing positive conservation behavior in future generations. We promote the use of subtle anthropomorphism within a children's storybook as an effective method of increasing ecological knowledge of a target primate species. We delivered an education programme to 170 children in Indonesia from wherein we tested ecological knowledge across gender toward the species before and after exposure to a mildly anthropomorphized storybook. Following the programme, participants of both genders significantly increased their use of accurate ecology terms (Z = -3.01, p = 0.003). Anthropomorphic terms are markedly altered from human adjectives in females and verbs in males toward accurate ecological terms. If used correctly and in correspondence with accurate ecological representations of a species, subtle anthropomorphism can aid in increasing empathy and knowledge in education programmes.

An introduction is presented to articles in this issue on advertising characters and anthropomorphism in marketing including articles on management of advertising characters, on college sports logos and on the use of animals in advertising.

Abstract: Conservation professionals recognize the need to evaluate education initiatives with a flexible approach that is culturally appropriate. Cultural‐consensus theory (CCT) provides a framework for measuring the extent to which beliefs are communally held and has long been applied by social scientists. In a conservation‐education context, we applied CCT and used free lists (i.e., a list of items on a topic stated in order of cultural importance) and domain analysis (analysis of how free lists go together within a cultural group) to evaluate a conservation education program in which we used a children's picture book to increase knowledge about and empathy for a critically endangered mammal, the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus). We extracted free lists of keywords generated by students (n = 580 in 18 schools) from essays they wrote before and after the education program. In 2 classroom sessions conducted approximately 18 weeks apart, we asked students to write an essay about their knowledge of the target species and then presented a book and several activities about slow loris ecology. Prior to the second session, we asked students to write a second essay. We generated free lists from both essays, quantified salience of terms used, and conducted minimal residuals factor analysis to determine presence of cultural domains surrounding slow lorises in each session. Students increased their use of words accurately associated with slow loris ecology and conservation from 43% in initial essays to 76% in final essays. Domain coherence increased from 22% to 47% across schools. Fifteen factors contributed to the domain slow loris. Between the first and second essays, factors that showed the greatest change were feeding ecology and slow loris as a forest protector, which increased 7‐fold, and the humancentric factor, which decreased 5‐fold. As demonstrated by knowledge retention and creation of unique stories and conservation opinions, children achieved all six levels of Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains. Free from the constraints of questionnaires and surveys, CCT methods provide a promising avenue to evaluate conservation education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]