A few weeks ago I was at DrupalCon, Denver, when I was walking towards the main lecture hall. I passed by two coffee stalls. The first one was really busy, there was a line of people waiting to get coffee. The other one was empty. No customers at all.

I began to wonder why can’t some people from the first stall move to the other one for quicker service. Obviously today is the first morning of DrupalCon so people have not tasted the coffee yet and nobody knows if one’s customer service is better than the other.

Obviously the reason is that the first stall was before the other so initial momentum started there. New people saw that one was very busy so they assumed that there was something better about the first stall than the other. PURE social proof play.

AMAZING. People would rather wait in line and get late to attend the Keynote speech than go against the social proof (which is formed on the basis of NOTHING).

If you do your research and you conclude that Androids are better than iPhone, it would be very hard for you to buy one if your social circle is iPhone enthusiasts. We simply don’t want to be the odd ones. We never want to gather attention from the crowd if its somewhat negative (No matter how small that thing is)

That’s why brand marketing works. Companies put their brands on every stadium, product, train, TV, website and we become used to seeing it. Eventually we are comfortable with looking at that brand and then we assume its normal to consume it. We are confident that we are complying with the status quo and consuming that product is not going to make us odd.

Its our lizard brain that protects us, its a defense mechanism. If we want to survive and get protection from our tribe, we comply with the implicit rules.

Exercise your new insight: For the next week, consciously notice the decisions you make that are simply complying with the status quo. The decisions that might not be the best for you but you are making them just to comply