An audience segmentation approach to conservation messaging for transforming the exotic pet trade

Advancing transformative change for sustainability requires population-wide behavior change. Yet, most behavioral interventions tackling environmental problems only examine average effects on the aggregate, while overlooking the heterogeneous effects within a population. This pre-registered experiment develops a novel audience segmentation approach to test the diverse impact of conservation messaging on reducing demand for exotic pets (private action) and fostering citizen engagement for system change (civic action). We first identified four segments (early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards), representing varying levels of commitment to wildlife conservation, and then randomly assigned each segment to one of three messaging conditions. Messages highlighting the negative consequences of the exotic pet trade and the power of collective action effectively promoted private action among all segments except early adopters. Among civic actions, only the collective action message motivated early adopters and the early majority to sign petitions. Furthermore, the four segments showed distinct reasoning for action and inaction on wildlife conservation, with certain relational values, such as care, serving as both motivations and barriers to action. These findings highlight the need for targeted behavioral interventions across diverse populations.