It's been 15 years since I walked the turf of Carisbrook and I have managed in that time to keep silent on Highlanders rugby, but that jersey was the last straw. I suppose I know the brand better than most, since I created it with some very capable southern folk.
I was sad and somewhat incredulous on Friday night, not because the Highlanders lost - the Force deserved their win - but because the launch of the new jersey was an insult to Carisbrook. So much history, so many memories, and yet the focus of the last Highlanders game at Carisbrook was on a new strip.
That was a public relations disaster and you can't tell me the players weren't distracted by it. Just one more thing they should not have had to worry about.
So Roger Clark says the "Highlanders" have no tradition.
What he suggests is a nonsense: the Highlanders brand was built on a rich history and proud tradition of southern people and southern rugby. Marketed properly, blue, gold and maroon blood should bleed from the veins of its muscle-bound mascot.
In creating the Highlanders brand, the overriding objective was to develop a brand, logo and name instantly associated with the south and surrounded by values associated with its people, land and rugby: a tough and rugged land helped forge tough, rugged people.
But this identity is also about dry humour, wit, friendliness, never-say-die attitudes, understatedness, stoicism and a fierce independence. And of course, throughout the southern region there is that strong association with the region's Scottish ancestry.
In many ways the branding of the Highlanders was a no-brainer because it was based on a living heritage, tradition and culture and it is still unique.
Successful brand marketing is about creating an emotional connection with people, surrounding the brand with images they can identify with and reinforcing them at every opportunity. It's not rocket science; it's a study of human behaviour and keeping it simple.
The All Blacks might have alternate playing strips as might the Crusaders, but would they change their true colours? Absolutely not. Would Coca-Cola move away from red? Would Manchester United dabble in a little bile green? I think not.
Colours mean something and in days gone by, defending your colours was all that mattered. Even today, gang loyalty is seen through what colours you wear.
And our gang, tribe, clan, call it what you like is the Highlanders.
To change the Highlanders' playing jersey shows a total lack of understanding of the brand values and personality. A few wins this season, however heartening, does not mean it's time to get the marketing gurus in to herald in a new green era.
My family now lives in the shaky red-and-black city north of Dunedin but they are all staunch Highlanders fans. My two boys proudly wear their Highlanders jerseys to rugby practice and have Highlanders posters and flags on their walls.
It is a small island of blue, gold and maroon in a sea of red and black. Around the country are many of those small islands of colour staunchly defending their team.
There is green in the pastures of Southland but I think it is a deeper green, as in the valleys of Fiordland. Just where is the lime green in the scenery of Otago?
Much of the south was founded on gold, and the tawny tussock country of the Maniototo so well captured by Grahame Sydney has no green, except in a good spring.
Blue is the colour of the southern sky and there maybe a fleck of slime green in our rivers (an algal bloom?) but they generally run blue. As long as I can recall, maroon was the colour of Southland - and your skin on a cold night at Rugby Park.
Connections, associations, that's what makes marketing work: blue, gold and maroon connections.
Insipid, generic green might well be snazzy, hip and a harbinger of change but give me tradition, history and heritage any time.
Dare I suggest a better strategy might have been to reinforce the brand, its colours and what they stand for even more strongly? In the immortal words from the movie The Highlander, "There can be only one," and it was only ever in blue, gold and maroon.
Jamie Mackintosh and his team have reignited the flame of loyalty in the Highlanders and everyone is proud of them. But don't blow it out with ill-conceived, poorly researched marketing. Ditch the jersey.
- John Cossens was the Highlanders' marketing manager in 1995-96.
