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.