PurposeThe empirical, cross-national study reported here examines how time orientations influence attitudes toward advertising in two emerging Asian economies with very different background and time orientation, namely Macau and Georgia. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaire was used as an instrument to conduct a survey for the study. The questionnaire design was adapted from Rojas-Méndez et al. study. The two samples were collected through either a drop-off-and-pick-up method or street-intercept interview. FindingsGeorgians are found to be more past oriented and had had more suspicious feelings about advertising whereas Macau data indicated more future-orientation was the most dominant dimensions and they had better dispositions towards advertising. Practical implicationsWith the findings, managers of different time orientation markets can consider one more factor to strike for the optimal balance in placing their promotional budget between pull and push strategy, and between above-the-line and below-the-line activities when executing the pull strategy. Social implicationsGovernment of different time orientation can be more informed of the effectiveness of using advertising to communicate with its citizens in its culture. Originality/valueStudies on how time orientation relates to attitudes toward advertising are few and such relationship appears to be never compared within two Asian countries with very different background and time orientation.