Land of long All Black cloud

There is an organisation in this country called the New Zealand Story. It is charged with working with businesses and government agencies to develop our country’s brand. Brand development is a slow slog. It takes years and years to improve and enhance perceptions of any brands whether that’s for a person, company or a country.

NZ Story’s aim is to make our key markets understand the breadth of what we offer in tourism, trade, as a place to live or to send your children for an education.

But ask most people in the street in another country what they know about New Zealand and they’ll either say we’re somewhere north of Alaska, east of Australia, or they’ll mention three things: the kiwi, our beautiful landscapes and the All Blacks.

This past weekend that last brand I mentioned took a thrashing, and if anyone says rugby is just a game, they are sadly wrong.

Despite the views of many of us that we are so much more than rugby, as a nation we still play to the reputation that rugby is supreme in this country.

We reinvest in that loyalty to the game most days through the conversations we have, the prioritising of the sports news, the curation of our social life around each game, even if for some of us that means how we avoid it.

The stunned, sad looks on the faces of so many on Sunday, the lead stories in all the media, the ‘‘this is what went wrong’’ on talkback radio, all demonstrated that we still continue to reinforce the ‘‘rugby nation’’ brand.

In the past few weeks you couldn’t look at the media, listen to conversation, or get on a plane without mention of the Rugby World Cup.

And our emotional investment in our loyalty to the game, how it represents us and the culture it creates are continually exposed to our international audiences.

So, despite all the work we have done, and are doing, to develop New Zealand’s story internationally, our nation’s character is still very much defined by the rugby one.

But maybe, being knocked off our rugby throne creates a silver lining for us.

Instead of looking and feeling like the guys who lost the rugby, let’s step back and think about what else New Zealand means to us.

Actually, let’s not just think about it, let’s portray that in the words we say, the posts we make, what we get emotional about and what we don’t.

When you jump into a cab in another country and the driver says: ‘‘Aaah, New Zealand – the All Blacks’’, tell them a different story about what we do down here.

Government agencies have been battling for years to develop our reputation beyond great rugby and pretty scenery. They’re not doing it for fun, they’re doing it to help our exporters in products and services, education and tourism. In a nutshell, they’re doing it for New Zealand’s future.

The NZ Story brand’s blurb says: ‘‘The more we can do to ensure we’re all telling a broad, compelling and aspirational story about New Zealand . . . the greater chance we have of attracting people to all that we offer. Put simply, we need to make New Zealand famous for more good things.’’

Perhaps it is time our nation of All Blacks disciples becomes a nation of ambassadors for everything we do.

Then the rest of the world knows what we already know, that we might have lost a game of rugby but we are winners in so many other ways.