Ashleigh Logan-McFarlane
ashleigh logan mcfarlane

Dr Ashleigh Logan-McFarlane

Lecturer

 0131 455 4335

  A.Logan-McFarlane@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Dr Ashleigh McFarlane is a Lecturer in Marketing and Co-Chair of the Academy of Marketing Visual Methods Research (SIG). She received her ESRC funded PhD from the University of Strathclyde and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Ashleigh’s research explores societal issues related to consumer behaviour and marketing. Her expertise in digital, ethnographic methods reveals how emerging behaviours in digital spaces are shaping marketplace behaviours. Her research focuses on influencers, market dynamics, labour, fashion marketing and visual methodologies. This is reflected in her teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate modules. Recent work has explored the phenomenon of fashion influencers aged 50+ and how digital, aesthetic labours on social media platforms such as Instagram can lead to success in the fashion industry.

Ashleigh’s research has appeared in international peer-reviewed journals including: European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Advances in Consumer Research and Celebrity Studies. Her work has been presented at leading peer-reviewed conferences in Consumer Behaviour internationally. Ashleigh is an active member of the Association for Consumer Research and the Consumer Culture Theory Network. Ashleigh also has connections with a number of organisations specialising in understanding emerging consumer behaviours in digital contexts.

School

Research Groups

Research Areas

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Academy of Marketing Visual Methods Special Interest Group (SIG) Co-Chair
  • Key member of the Academy of Marketing Visual Methods SIG advisory board

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Workshop Chair Academy of Marketing Visual Methods

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • FHEA Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

 

Invited Speaker

  • Invited Panel Chair: Netnocon, “Netnography for crisis management and coping”
  • Invited Panel Chair: Netnocon, "Algorithmic and Market Culture: Studies and Methods Utilizing a More-than-human Approach"
  • #50+ Fashion Instagram Influencers: Cognitive age and Aesthetic Digital Labours

 

Media Activity

  • Channel 4 Super Shoppers (6th April 2018 aired June 2018) An interview with Anna Richardson on the impact of UK Supermarket chain product pricing and positioning strategies on shopper behaviours.

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Membership of the Academy of Marketing
  • Membership of the Association for Consumer Research (ACR)
  • Membership of the Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) Network

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Eco-Friendly Parenting, Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas (CODI), The Edinburgh Fringe (August).
  • Creative Sparks

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External PhD Examiner: University of the West of Scotland School of Business and Creative Industries
  • MRes External Research Examiner: University of Strathclyde Business School
  • External PhD examiner: University of Manchester Faculty of Science and Engineering

 

Reviewing

  • Reviewer for the Journal of Business Research
  • Reviewer for the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management
  • Reviewer for Annals of Tourism Research
  • Pearson Education
  • Reviewer for the Journal of Marketing Management
  • Reviewer for Arts Marketing an International Journal

 

Visiting Positions

  • Centre for Retail Research 10-year celebration and book launch event, "The Future of Consumption."
  • Influencers, blogger-preneurs, moms, festival goers: How emerging behaviours in digital spaces shape markets

 

Filter by

Date


21 results

#KateGate: How the passionate energy of publics’ social media posts affected the royal communications crisis

Journal Article
Logan-McFarlane, A. (2025)
#KateGate: How the passionate energy of publics’ social media posts affected the royal communications crisis. Public Relations Review, 51(3), Article 102590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102590
This paper analyzes how passionate publics creatively reshaped the crisis narrative during the British Royal Family’s 2024 #KateGate controversy. When the Royal Communications...

Is it real or not? construction of meaning and identity in virtual influencer marketing

Journal Article
Thompson, J., Igarashi, R., Krowinska, A., & Logan-McFarlane, A. (2025)
Is it real or not? construction of meaning and identity in virtual influencer marketing. Journal of Business Research, 194, Article 115362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115362
Virtual influencers (VIs) are an emerging category of social media influencer. Through a sequential mixed-method research design, this research employs the theoretical lens of...

#Chavcheck: embodied TikTok memes and labouring to leverage habitus.

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Logan-McFarlane, A. (2024, June)
#Chavcheck: embodied TikTok memes and labouring to leverage habitus. Paper presented at GENMAC Conference, University of Edinburgh
This paper reveals how going viral with an embodied meme stereotype promotes gender and social class struggles. Specifically, it exposes the digital labour involved in constru...

Dissemination of Academic Research Using Visual Methods

Book Chapter
McFarlane, A., Yannopoulou, N., Chandrasapth, K., Kelsey, D., Jones, S., Cronin, J., Piacentini, M., Cléret, B., Porteous, H., Wilson, J., & Hamilton, K. (2024)
Dissemination of Academic Research Using Visual Methods. In F. Kawaf, & O. Deckel-Dachs (Eds.), Visual Methods in Marketing and Consumer Research. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003310877-9
This chapter explores the diverse ways that academic researchers reimagine, capture, and disseminate their research using visual methods. In this chapter we benefit from the...

Digital content and social media influencers

Book Chapter
Logan-McFarlane, A. (2023)
Digital content and social media influencers. In A. Krowinska, C. Backhaus, B. Becker, & F. Bosser (Eds.), Digital Content Marketing: Creating Value in Practice. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003346500-8
This chapter discusses social media influencer domains and reviews different types of influencers, such as mega, macro, micro, and nano. The chapter evaluates social media inf...

#Chavcheck: Does TikTok facilitate the pornification of social class struggles?

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Logan-McFarlane, A. (2023, July)
#Chavcheck: Does TikTok facilitate the pornification of social class struggles?. Paper presented at Netnocon 2023, University of Salford, Manchester, UK
In 2020, the ‘chav’ trope resurfaced globally on TikTok. The trend featured individuals performing ““chav checks”, heavy makeup tutorials, and showing off the UK’s “chavviest ...

Changing Public Opinion on Fashion and Age: Unpacking Narrative Strategy in Instagram Message Posts of 50+ Fashion Influencers

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Logan-McFarlane, A., & Samsioe, E. (2023, June)
Changing Public Opinion on Fashion and Age: Unpacking Narrative Strategy in Instagram Message Posts of 50+ Fashion Influencers. Paper presented at Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), Lund University, Sweden
Our study aims to investigate how narrative strategy can be employed to change public opinion on age in the Western beauty and fashion market. Our unique contribution lies in ...

Putting passion to work: Passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere

Journal Article
Logan-McFarlane, A., Hamilton, K., & Hewer, P. (2022)
Putting passion to work: Passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere. European Journal of Marketing, 56(4), 1210-1231. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-08-2019-0642
Purpose This study aims to explore passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere and addresses two research questions: How does passion animate passionate labour? How does the ...

Semiotics of the festival city: exploring the visual culture of Edinburgh. . Paper presented at Special Track: Visual Tourism

Presentation / Conference
Todd, L., & Logan-McFarlane, A. (2020, September)
Semiotics of the festival city: exploring the visual culture of Edinburgh. . Paper presented at Special Track: Visual Tourism. Paper presented at ATLAS annual conference 2020: Tourism as a driver of regional development and collaboration, Online
This paper presents emerging themes from our study of the semiotics that sustain the visual culture, consumption and place myth of Edinburgh, as the ‘world’s leading festival ...

#50+ fashion Instagram influencers: cognitive age and aesthetic digital labours

Journal Article
McFarlane, A., & Samsioe, E. (in press)
#50+ fashion Instagram influencers: cognitive age and aesthetic digital labours. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 24(3), 399-413. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-08-2019-0177
This paper demonstrates how #50+ fashion Instagram influencers contribute to the social construction of cognitive age through their aesthetic digital labours. Non-participativ...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • ESRC +1 Nostalgic Celebrity Culture: Dynamics between Past and Present within Consumer Culture

Current Post Grad projects