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.
