Stéphane Plaza, Abbé Pierre … Eponymous signs in the accommodation: like a hurricane

Free tribune

While justice has just authorized Stéphane Plaza Immobilier agencies to change their names, Henry Buzy-Cazaux, president-founder of the Institute of Real Estate Management, wonders if we do not see the end of eponymous brands, especially in housing.

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Housing and more broadly real estate have always been carried by initiatives and personal successes. Our promotion, transaction, management, franchises, were mostly created by women or entrepreneurs. The same goes for the associative world of housing, which owes almost everything to the generosity and audacity of a person, who has managed to lead others. This situation has led many brands to be eponymousthat is to say to bear the name of their creator. Two recent events make us think about this collusion between a man and a business or association, the moral removal of Father Pierre and the condemnation of Stéphane Plaza.

Obviously, in both cases the communities behind these brands felt a prejudice Considerable to the point of changing its name and killing any reference to the founder. In both cases, the emblematic figures that had inspired the birth of the organization were associated with morally and judicially reprehensible acts. In the case of the man of the winter appeal 54, justice considered that the facts were prescribed, embarrassing the Abbé Pierre Foundation as the clergy which would have preferred that they were judged and condemned: Father Pierre was condemned by the popular vindictive if not judged by a jury of assizes. We can only understand, under these conditions, that the leaders of Plaza Immobilier Like those of the Abbé Pierre Foundation wanted to change its name. The stake consisted in stopping the prejudice of image suffered by stakeholders.

Plaza case: justice has decided, real estate agencies will be able to change their names

New names for Plaza Immobilier and the Abbé Pierre Foundation

In the name of the founder of a company, franchise or associative movement in this case, we are looking for a model, embodiment of values ​​and qualities somehow transmissible to all those who carry the brand. The image is not in detail: if one represents a personality of which a dark side is revealed, it accredits that we also subscribe to the flaws brought to light and through the man in question. The problem of judicial doubt, as long as an alleged guilty is not condemned in the last instance, is not one: the only incrimination alters the image and The long, long judicial time is incompatible with the media immediacy. Clearly, at the media level, appealing to a first instance decision does not suspend the degradation of the image. The worst is even elsewhere: in the event of judicial rehabilitation, media evil is done.

This logic is worth in both directions and those responsible for Plaza or the FAP (Abbé Pierre Foundation) suffer from the negative as they benefited from the positive. The Foundation for the Housing of the Department, a new name of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, or 6th avenue, new name of Plaza Immobiliermust now question doubly. Can they first capitalize on the happy past or the counter is reset to zero? And can they still take advantage of the indisputable side of the men from which they have worn the colors for decades for decades or years for the franchise of Stéphane Plaza?

Stéphane Plaza Immobilier: “Do we have to continue to show Stéphane’s head in our agencies?”

The virtuous past should not be forgotten

Clearly, with all the difficulty of an exercise consisting in having to sort in a life and in a balance sheet, the virtuous past not only must not be denied but must be claimed. The fights waged and won by the abbot are a social achievement for our country and it is on this basis that consecutive fights are based. The right to constitutional housing, enforceable, public attention to housing of the most fragile, the institutionalization of social housing, dedicated financing circuits, and so many other progress, certainly always to consolidate, are there and appear in the balance of the abbot, final and for the future. What Stéphane Plaza has brought to the profession of real estate agent or property administrator, a renewed sense of empathy, dedication, support and service, constitutes a content of the brand and a promise, which is in keeping. The job will also have presented a more kind side For young or old, who have engaged there – specialized schools have measured it. Denying the past would be a mistake. In both cases, it will have been glorious and will have made progress, for one in public action, for the other in the developments of professional practices and the attractiveness of transaction and management activities.

And Can these brands continue to invoke the men who inspired them? Delicate subject. The bet is at high risk. In other areas, that of ideas, the exercise is easier: Heidegger or Louis-Ferdinand Céline are still studied in schools and universities, even if their dark side is proven and their complaisances towards the uncoverse worst. In the commercial field or associative commitment, it does not work. The logics are more rustic and more basic.

Stéphane Plaza case: the double sentence for its network of agencies, in the midst of a real estate crisis

The end of eponymous brands?

These two examples and many other similar people can lead to wondering if we do not see the end of the eponymous marks, especially in the accommodation. Housing has become a cause, which does badly cleaning with faux ethical or moral. At the same time, media leaders are now scrutinized. Their past is searched, with partly noble intentions for parts linked to the desire to damage and to a certain jealousy or to vénal calculations. The result is there: a fragility of men, which the institutions do not have to the same degree.

This fragility weakens the brands and the temptation to take advantage of the forces, most often exceptional of these rare personalities, must be tempered by the risks of reversal. It is a real hurricane that blows on the eponymous brands. The case of the FAP even shows us that the death of the person does not turn the risk: Father Pierre made his last breath in 2007! All companies and housing associations must teach what happens there and anticipate. These earthquakes also say that housed households has a greatness that cannot accommodate baseness, happy revelation. To something bad is good.