In Praise of Conformity

Last week at the Cannes Lions Festival, the best minds in advertising gathered once again to celebrate creativity. Awards were handed out for what was different, daring, disruptive, and of course, “never-seen-before.” Funnily, for a festival that champions difference, the crowd looked remarkably…similar. Black or white t-shirts, jeans or linen trousers, sneakers, and perhaps a blue or black linen blazer to complete the uniform.

The same happens at weddings—no matter how much we desire to stand out in the event, our hand automatically reaches for a kurta or a saree, even if it hasn’t seen the light of day in years. Why, have you ever noticed that at office parties, someone will eventually play “Summer of '69,” and as if it’s encoded, everyone in office joins the chorus of singing it together.

There is something oddly comforting in sameness. Not just in rituals, but in behaviours, gestures, even aspirations. For a society that prides itself on diversity, we seem to hold a deep and enduring affection for conformity.

However, everybody—brands included—loves terms like innovator, path‑breaking, disruptor. The Apple “Think Different” campaign is like a manifesto for those of us who pride ourselves on standing out. In ad agencies, we celebrate the rare few campaigns that genuinely break the mould. Yet here’s the paradox: less than 1% of our work is truly different. 

So, is conforming really so bad?

We survived as a species because we conformed. We mimicked, copied, and obeyed—because standing out in a jungle full of predators was a poor survival strategy. The early human who followed the group was more likely to live, to mate, to pass on genes. Safety lay in the herd. Evolution, perhaps, was not partial to the originals.

As civilisation progressed, conformity gave birth to culture. Festivals, rituals, language, even etiquette are all codified expressions of conformity. Imagine how would a Holi or Diwali be, if every third household celebrated it differently?

Our economic systems too are powered by sameness. Mass production is possible only because we accept standardisation—of design, of taste, of experience. The car we drive, the parts it uses, the thali meal, the multiplex movie, the 9-to-5 job—they exist because we agreed, en masse, to want the same thing at the same time.

Let’s be honest, even in marketing, “being different” is a brand strategy, not a truth. The archetype of the misfit is now mass-produced. Agencies sell “disruption” with 50-slide decks and pre-approved mood boards.

We claim to reject the ordinary, yet test for ad effectiveness using the same age-old metrics. We create personas to personalise, but really, we’re finding better ways to group people who behave similarly. We say, “Talk to an individual,” but then buy media based on shared behavioural cohorts. Irony died a long time ago. 

Sure, Gladwell told us about “tipping points”, “outliers”, and “mavens”, where a few are enough to sway the many . But those signals rely on the soil of conformity to spread. If I were to paraphrase the Bard, the world of change is a stage—and most of us are stage hands, not the stars.

And in the world of branding, the fetish for disruption sometimes forgets that before a brand can break the rules, it must first be recognised within them. You can’t be a misfit unless people know what you’re misfitting from.

In a world that’s shifting faster than we can process, conformity is the emotional anchor. When everything else is unstable—jobs, weather, algorithms, rent—it is conformity that gives comfort. That familiar plate of dal-chawal, the same good morning message from that Uncle on WhatsApp, the guaranteed curd rice to end a meal in South Indian homes —these are not minor rituals. They are survival cues.

Conformity gives meaning to the everyday. It allows us to function, to connect, to not have to rethink every small decision. If every act had to be “different,” life would be exhausting. Uniformity, ironically, is what gives us the energy to be original in bursts.

As marketers, the temptation is always to stand apart. But survival—and scale—often lies in standing together. Conformity is not the enemy of creativity. It is the canvas.

We may admire the misfits. But it is the ones who understand the script—and choose how to play within it—who build enduring brands, enduring stories, and perhaps even enduring societies.

In the age of disruption, maybe the quietest form of boldness is this —to not try so hard to be different.