"Way Of The Dolphin" becomes "Beneath The Blue"

Following is an email from the head of marketing of the movie, Jessica Kelley, summarizing the process and making a recommendation:

"After conducting focus groups and speaking with international distributorsover the course of the past month, I am now ready to make the firm recommendation that we change the title fromWay of the Dolphin to Beneath the Blue. Through a variety of means we have established ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that  Beneath the Blue offers more adventure and resonates very strongly in a positive way with our key demographic. Below, I summarize the data that supports this conclusion.

First, after narrowing down alternative title choices, we conducted focus groups of the demographic (females 11-17) as well as people who fell outside of the demographic. A total of 132 participants were informed about the movie and read a synopsis, leaving the film nameless. They were then asked to rank 9 titles (one being Way of the Dolphin). Of the 92 participants that fell into the key demographic, the top three choices were "Beneath The Blue", Surfacing, and Smith Point. Of the remaining people ranging from age 18-55, "Beneath The Blue" made far and away the biggest splash – 34% of the group thought that this was the most exciting title. In addition, they claimed that they were more likely to go see a film with this title than the others presented.

Digging deeper, one of the reasons why "Beneath The Blue" is so well liked is that it not only lends itself to being an adventure, but also the title builds an association with two blockbuster hits which also targeted much the same demographic – "Into The Blue" and "Blue Crush". Both of these films did extremely well pulling in over $400M worldwide from theatrical and DVD sales.  Creating this association within the same demographic can only boost our film’s sales.

Third, from the conversations with various international buyers, many are looking for a family adventure. Presenting them "Beneath The Blue" has lead to much intrigue.

In conclusion, the title "Beneath The Blue" is not only well perceived by our demographic, but also the general population and prospective distributors. In addition, the title creates a great association with two films that did quite well. Therefore, I strongly suggest that we change the name of the film to "Beneath The Blue".