Check Reality Before You Try to Change Perceptions
Perception gaps in London policing reveal why marketers should diagnose before persuading. What people believe is often shaped by distance, not data.
When Londoners are asked about the city’s biggest problem, knife crime tops the list. Ask about their own neighbourhood, and that issue drops below antisocial behaviour, drugs and burglary. Sam Salama, Insights Lead at the Met Police, writing for The BE Hub, argues this gap is not a quirk. It is a useful case study in perception formation—and a warning for marketers who rush to change perceptions before checking what is real.
Psychological proximity changes the answer
One reason the answer shifts is psychological distance. A city is too large to experience directly. People build a mental picture from memorable stories. Knife crime is frightening and severe, so individual incidents stick and come to define the whole of London. The data tells a different story. Research from King’s College London cited in the article shows the public estimates 30% of Londoners experience crime each year; the actual figure is 12%. Nearly two-thirds think overall crime has risen since 2019, though it has fallen slightly.
By contrast, local views are built from direct contact: graffiti near the station, antisocial behaviour on the high street. The questions of what is wrong with London and what is wrong where you live may sound similar, but they are psychologically different. For brands, the same applies. A national reputation and a local experience can diverge sharply. A customer’s direct product experience will often override the abstract story told in media or advertising.
Environment shapes attitude more than demographics
Salama also found that, after controlling for age, income and other demographic factors, where someone lives still has a meaningful link with attitudes towards the police. A 30-year-old in Richmond may not see policing the way a 30-year-old in Lambeth does. Geography matters. He offers a parallel from Germany: more than three decades after reunification, electoral maps still show a clear East-West divide, with the AfD especially strong in much of the former East.
The marketing takeaway: do not assume a persona is enough. Context—neighbourhood, city, cultural history—leaks into belief. If your campaign only segments by age and income, you may miss the environment that shapes what people think.
When perception is reality—and when the metric lies
Sometimes the public’s belief is simply accurate. If people say they see fewer police patrols, it may not be negativity bias. Met officer numbers dropped from 34,523 in April 2023 to 31,181 in March 2026, according to London Assembly analysis. No amount of reframing will fix an underlying truth.
The reverse error is equally dangerous. A number can be correct while the story attached to it is wrong. Reported police visibility can be four in ten in one borough and one in ten in another, yet that does not mean one area gets four times more patrols. Officers near busy town centres are seen by more people; residential patrols are less visible. Bromley is 12 times larger than Kensington and Chelsea, so visibility is not like for like.
A football example makes the same point. Sir Alex Ferguson sold defender Jaap Stam to Lazio in 2001 partly because his tackle count looked as though it was declining. But top defenders with better positioning need to make fewer tackles. Ferguson later described the sale as a mistake. The metric was real; the interpretation was not.
Diagnose before you persuade
Before launching a rebrand, awareness push or perception campaign, run the same diagnosis:
- Is there a genuine gap between reality and perception?
- Is the customer’s immediate environment shaping what they believe?
- Are we measuring the perception badly?
- Or are people accurately describing reality?
Each answer demands a different response. If the perception is wrong, better communication may help. If the environment is the cause, a comms campaign will do little. If the measurement is flawed, you need better analysis. And if the perception is true, fix the product or experience instead. Behavioural science is useful not only for changing minds—it is useful for knowing whether there is a gap to close at all.
