Conformity and social influence, and the implications this has from a marketing perspective?

[aha!]

I don't know about academic sources, but I have read books on the subject matter

I recommend
Herd by Mark Earls
Critical Mass by Phillip Ball
It starts with why by Simon Sinek

There are also books on branding. They may be talking about Disney, MacDonald's, Tesco, Microsoft, Apple

Obvious authors to look into include:
Zimbardo
Piaget

Cultural factor can be a significant influence; includes social class, upbringing, religion, beliefs, pluralism

Most obvious things to look for in marketing research includes topics on:
branding
identity
consumer habits
marketing trends
social media

Your chosen topic is a very broad subject matter. There have been books written on this issue and they should not be difficult to find. However, with such a broad subject matter, it's difficult to pinpoint the more relevant information, so you should really try to phrase things in a more specific manner to save yourself the headache of reading too much or trying to write the equivalent of 10 books for one project.

You should be assigned an advisor, so talking to him/her about it could be of great help.
Beware of any statistical tests you might have to do.

Hope this helps