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.

Most religious teachings support the idea that money and materialism are at the root of all evil. However, reality is not so rigorous and many times materialism seems even a blessing. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare religious and non-religious consumer on their perspective toward materialism, and through it, luxury brand and purchase intention. The total sample consisted of 491 university Asian students. Results show that religious consumers are not necessarily against neither materialism nor luxury brand possession. Consumers’ religiosity did not influence their perspective toward materialism or luxury goods. This creates an opportunity for managers to promote luxury brand toward religious consumers especially in Asia, where religion is more prevalent.