Quand la réforme territoriale questionne le devenir et les ressorts de la marque Territoire : une approche par les proximités

Over the past 10 years, many French local authorities have initiated brand strategies to strengthen the attractiveness of their territory and the links between the stakeholders. In addition, these brands constitute real collective projects that are expressed through the development of proximity such as cognitive, institutional or organizational. The territorial reform, by the law NOTRe (New Territorial Organization of the Republic) effective from 1 January 2016, reducing the regions from 22 to 13, questions the future of these brands and the activation of the proximity on which these collective brands are based. The local economy grid (Boschma, 2005) is used to identify the links between the actors involved in brand strategy and their intensities. This work updates the possible leverages to make a brand evolve in a context of changing geographical and administrative scopes for the regions. The case study is about a regional brand. This research is based on a qualitative study among the stakeholders of the Auvergne Nouveau Monde brand and on a quantitative survey of the inhabitants of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It allows, among six possible evolution scenarios resulting from the thematic content analysis, to identify the one considered most likely by using it as a key to understanding the different dimensions of proximity. It provides practitioners with suggestions on how to consider the sustainability of a brand by focusing strongly on social proximity, which has not yet been given much prominence in work that favours an organizational or political approach to the issue.