The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical overview of the use of social marketing in Asia. A total of 17 countries were included in this paper. We demonstrate the development and trends of social marketing in Asia by highlighting prominent and effective cases. Our findings reveal that social marketing practice represents a wide spectrum of topics. However, public policy and education outweigh adoption of social marketing to address social issues. Several barriers influence adoption and effectiveness of social marketing. We highlight a few and recommend strategies to overcome them.

This research aimed to investigate the impacting psychological factors for Vietnamese’s intention to stop littering. A quantitative method using self-reported online questionnaire was adopted to collect data from Vietnamese residents and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) method was employed to examine the proposed relationships. The results indicate that higher connectedness to nature and lower perceived behavioral control are associated with higher intention to stop littering in Vietnam. Limitations of current study and future research directions are outlined.

Koala populations are in decline and measures are necessary to change the current scenario. Social marketing aims to influence an audience to change behaviour for social or environmental benefit. This paper demonstrates how social marketing was applied to achieve environmental change. A pilot program, aiming to reduce dog and koala interactions, was designed and developed with dog owners and experts including koala conservation officers and dog trainers. Experts indicated that for dogs to be taught aversion, training of basic obedience skills was necessary. Therefore, a four-week dog obedience training program was implemented, emphasising a series of behaviours including sit, stay and koala aversion. A mixed method outcome evaluation was undertaken to evaluate Leave It. The evaluation included online surveys completed by dog owners’ pre and post program, and trainer observations. Results indicate that five of seven behaviours measures were changed from baseline to follow-up, namely sit, stay, come back when called every time, wildlife aversion and stay quiet on command. Successful koala aversion was also evident in field notes from trainers. Findings of this pilot program provide evidence of the effectiveness and potential of social marketing to change behaviours in an environmental context.

Marketing and market research are centered on the need to explore consumer experiences to inform management decisions. Heuristics and biases are of interest to marketing practitioners as these influences can impact data that is delivered to inform decisions. Existing research listing heuristics and biases alongside management strategies is limited to five reviews presenting frameworks and/or detailing heuristics and biases, none of which have been extended to a marketing context. This research 1) details the heuristics of interest to marketing practitioners by presenting n=7 core heuristics and the mechanisms of their operation and 2) examine solutions and proposed frameworks reported within the literature to avoid or acknowledge biases which may be present.

Evidence indicates that lower levels of obesity among school-age children can be achieved through active school travel modes which include walking. This research aims to empirically investigate the explanatory potential of the Ecological and Cognitive Active Commuting (ECAC) model to explain walking to school behaviour among Queensland children. The results from an online survey of 537 carers in Queensland, Australia indicate that the ECAC explained 53.4% of the variance in walking to school. Distance to school moderates the associations among walking to school behaviours, perceived risks, and social norms. Data indicates that changing carers’ social norms and lowering the perceived risks carers associate with walking to school will increase the incidence of walking to school in Queensland.