Gad Saad is an evolutionary behavioral scientist who is a professor of marketing at Concordia University in Canada. He’s also an associate editor of the journal Evolutionary Psychology and writes a popular blog for Psychology Today. Some have called him part of the “intellectual dark web”, a diverse group of heterodox academics who are willing to tack against the prevailing winds of thought conformity on today’s college campuses.

Saad applies the principals of evolutionary biology to consumers, but he uses the word consumers in its broadest definition, not just buyers, as humans make many choices about how we use many things. One area of his research has been how hormones affect consumers and also how consuming can affect hormones, in both sexes. For example, when men drive Porsches, their testosterone levels go up. (Read More…)

A recent study by iSeeCars.com shows men prefer brighter, bolder car colors — orange, brown and yellow — compared to women, who preferred more neutral colors such as gold, silver and beige. The study analyzed more than 25 million used cars and 200,000 shoppers.

Orange was the big polarizer for 2014; men were 25 percent more likely to pick that color than women. Last year’s popular picks for men, red and black, fell out of the top three this year in favor of brown and yellow.

Women’s picks of gold, silver and beige may have more to do with the segment in which females traditionally shop. iSeeCars said men’s interest in muscle cars can help explain the palette preferences.

(Read More…)

“The Krom Rogue will look a little more masculine,” [Patrick Steiner, director of sales and marketing for Nissan North America’s Specialty Vehicles and Accessories unit] said while standing alongside a prototype black Krom model at Nissan’s North American headquarters here. “We think it will attract a higher percentage of male buyers.”

Manly men can expect to pay $2,000-$4,000 over base for the Krom Edition Rogue’s masculinity defining “entirely new front end with a mesh grille, fog lights, rear spoiler, tinted glass, center exhaust pipes and 17-inch alloy wheels.” [Autoweek, via MSN]