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Associate Professor Leah Watkins serves in the Department of Marketing within the Otago Business School at the University of Otago. She earned her BA and Postgraduate Diploma in Japanese, Diploma for Graduates in Marketing, and a cross-divisional PhD in Marketing and Japanese Studies from the University of Otago. After completing her BA, she spent several years working and travelling in Japan and Europe before returning to pursue further studies and join the Department of Marketing. Throughout her career at Otago, she has advanced to the position of Associate Professor. Currently, she is Director for masters' programmes in the Department of Marketing and Associate Dean – International for the Otago Business School, responsible for developing the school's internationalisation strategy, overseeing the student exchange programme, and leading academic initiatives for international partnerships and collaborations. She leads the New Zealand Consumer Lifestyles Research Group, which conducts longitudinal surveys segmenting New Zealand consumers into lifestyle groups, and actively contributes to the Kids’Cam Project investigating children's exposure to consumption environments.
Watkins' research focuses on marketing and society, including cultural values' influence on tourism and consumption behaviour, ethical and sustainable consumption, voluntary simplicity and wellbeing, advertising's impact on children, and consumer socialisation. Her publications appear in prominent journals such as the Journal of Macromarketing, The Lancet Planetary Health, International Marketing Review, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Journal of Consumer Affairs. Key works include 'Marketing's moral myopia: A normative critique of harmful product marketing through the lens of the AMA definition' (2026, Journal of Macromarketing, with R. Aitken); 'Consume Less, Live Well: Examining the Dimensions and Moderators of the Relationship Between Voluntary Simplicity and Wellbeing' (2025); 'An objective assessment of children's exposure to brand marketing' (2022, The Lancet Planetary Health); and 'Public and parental perceptions of and concerns with advertising to preschool children' (2016). With over 1,400 citations on Google Scholar, her scholarship advances understanding of sustainable consumption literacy in youth and critiques marketing practices affecting vulnerable consumers.
Explore University of Otago's findings on how voluntary simplicity boosts hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing more than wealth, with insights for New Zealand's higher education community.
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