The best match-up of airline advertising endorsement and flight safety message

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of children as advertisement endorsers in the airline context, including images of safety and reliability. Design/methodology/approach This paper is intended to examine the advertising effect of endorsers (celebrities, CEOs, experts, consumers and children) in the context of the airline industry. A factorial experiment was conducted to test the communication effect (CE) of ten groups of advertisement combinations (five endorser types – with/without safety attribute). Findings The results indicate that a child endorser yielded a better CE than celebrity, CEO or typical consumer endorsers. Second, advertisements that emphasized safety had better CE than those without this emphasis. The group combining children and safety generated a better CE than most of the other groups comprising different combinations. Practical implications A child endorser and a safety message are recommended to be used in advertisements for airlines because flight passengers place importance on safety. Fragile image of child reinforces safety of an airline. Originality/value The integration of advertising endorsement and message into a conceptual model allows the current results to provide meaningful theoretical and practical implications.