Reggie Fils-Aime Stopped Nintendo of America from Re-Branding

Nintendo has been known for ages as a very family-friendly video game company, something that remains true to this day. But as it turns out, Nintendo wanted to re-brand and lean away from this classification. And they might have, had it not been for the guidance of former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Fils-Aime is no longer working as president of Nintendo of America. He retired nearly a year ago, enacting Doug Bowser as his successor. This doesn't mean he's out of the limelight entirely, however. First reported by Nintendo Everything, the now-retired Fils-Aime recently spoke about his time at Nintendo of America in an episode of the Present Value podcast. They spoke about a variety of things, including a time in the early 2000s when the company was considering a re-brand in order to appeal to more mature audiences. 

"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."

Fils-Aime explained that if they want to appeal to a wider audience, they need to do that through their actions and decisions. Superficial changes like a re-branding won't actually help them be a better, more successful company. Fils-Aime credits this steadfast disposition for the success of staple Nintendo products down the line.

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. Ill give you an example. 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 showed tremendous wisdom in this decision. At the time of his arrival to Nintendo, the company was at the lowest stock worth of its entire existence. In the following years, they would skyrocket, becoming over 10 times as valuable as before. Even during their low "Wii U era," Nintendo wouldn't fall lower than when they started. We know that Fils-Aime isn't solely responsible for this success, but his influence is undeniable.