change color setting of file being displayed with

Question

i have a log file with ^A as a delimiter. i want to change the background color of this delimiter to make things easier to see. i understand changing the background color is already answered here:

How to change the output color of echo in Linux

so my question is how do i change the display settings of how a file is displayed with the UNIX less command? or any other file viewing command (i.e.: vi) is there such a way? in other words i want to permanently change the way ^A is being displayed in my log files.

thanks in advance.