Reggie Fils-Aime stopped Nintendo from re-doing its logo in a graffiti style to attract older players

Former COO of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime once prevented the company from "aging up" its official logo - including a plan to re-do the logo in a graffiti style.

Speaking in an interview with Present Value Podcast, Fils-Aime describes a period in Nintendo of America's history when the company was trying to appeal to an audience beyond its fanbase of younger players. The team tested out ideas for altering its logo, before Reggie stepped in.

“From a branding standpoint, we had to be clear in what Nintendo as a brand stood for, as well as what the individual franchises stood for," said Reggie.

"When I joined Nintendo, there was a sense of almost shame that Nintendo appealed to young consumers, and the marketing team at Nintendo of America started doing things with the logo – that classic Nintendo logo in an oval – they would put it into graffiti style, or they’d do different things to try and age up the logo, and I put a stop to that because that is not our brand. And what we needed to do was yes, appeal to a broad swatch of consumers, but we needed to do it based on what the brand stood for, and not doing it in some false way.

"Systemically, we went through and cleaned up the presentation of the brand, but we also created messaging coupled with content that really broadened the reach, broadened the appeal, and set the stage for all of the great products we would launch like Wii, like Wii Fit, and eventually the Nintendo Switch.”

Reggie retired from Nintendo last year after 15 years with the games company. Doug Bowser, formerly VP of sales at Nintendo of America, took over the role in 2019.