Maggi Crisis - Will Marketers Win Again?

Maggi and the Lead Crisis seems to be going out-of-hand for Nestle. I have written earlier about Maggi and is one of my favourite examples to wake-up students in the class, so felt obliged to share my view on the crisis. I have few die-hard fans at home too…

Historically we have seen brands go this kind of challenge, once with the Cadbury's worms issue and the Pesticide Issues with the Colas drinks, and they have recovered fairly well from the crisis, so the same prognosis goes for Maggi too. But yes, a lot needs to be done before the recovery would happen. I am going a little ahead of time, as the worst of the crisis is yet to come, and that would happen over the next couple of months, with more reports coming in and the media having a gala time, debating the issue on the prime time :)

The reasons why I say that Maggi would make a come-back, (though in the process some other brands would be able to gain market-shares which they would have never dreamt earlier) is the loyalty it has developed over the years and the loyal Maggi eaters would eat it anyway, good or bad. The second reason is marketing, they have had very good marketing brains working for the brand and that has been the reason for its success and they would fall back on the same people to help them revive the brand. My guess is that the strategy would already be getting ready in the boardrooms and mid-night oil must have been burnt reading the experience of coke and Cadbury’s..

But interestingly one challenge which I see is winning back the “Mother", though most of the communications have mother at the centre, but she has not been very happy with serving Maggi to her children all along.  I overheard this conversation between a mother and her seven year old daughter, where the child was asking the mother about MSG and the problems with it, and the mother extended it to even pizzas saying that even they were not good. Over the years the typical mother has been grudgingly let the child eat the quota of Maggi without being able to do much, now here she sees a window of opportunity. She will try and use this crisis to wean the child away from Maggi. But my hunch is that the marketers will use more powerful tricks to win both of them back, for the child is the taste and mother the convenience…

I have used the word "Quota" in Maggi consciously, ideally it should be 'rationing' as the child is not allowed to eat Maggi whenever he or she wants....

Forgotten Brands

It must be true for the other markets also, but I find this a little surprising when I see very good brands languishing in neglect in a market where there is a dearth of good brands. I saw one example yesterday in a shop and that triggered this post. The brand which I am talking about is catch, it use to a quite well-known brand a couple of decades back, but now I do not think many people would think of it is a strong brand. 

A more recent example is a brand in apparels - ColorPlus, it again use to a  very strong brand in cotton apparels , but now today I do not see it occupying the mindshare as it use to 10-12 years back.

One of the reasons is that these two brands were bought over by larger player like Raymonds bought Colour Plus, but then rather than leveraging the brands name , it has left to die, maybe some the internal dynamics of the organization would dictate that or the brand gets lost amidst  the numerous brands that the acquirer has.

The list of the forgotten brands is very long, Uncle Chips, Deccan Airways, Kelvinator...

Nokia will also join the list soon, at least in the mobiles....

Can toothbrushes be further Differentiated?

Whenever I have think of tooth brushes, the first image which come to my mind is that of the toothbrush salesman moving from one shop to the other walking with bundles of toothbrushes.....

And feel that all that can be differentiated in a toothbrush has been done, no further ways to make your toothbrush different from the other..

But then time and again I see examples which remind me that a marketer can find ways and means of differentiating and continue doing it

The zigzag bristles, additional tongue cleaner and so on....are the usual ones

The most interesting one which I found was the idea of putting an indicator in Oral-B. It made sense because it helped both the company as well as consumers who would be reminded that it time to change the brush and the company obviously in sales...

The last visit to a large retailer brought to my attention a new offering from Colgate which is also equally interesting , the SlimSoft Charcoal , the website enlists two advantages, first the micro slim-tip bristles help reach deeper between teeth & along the gum-line and second  the charcoal infused bristles remove plaque bacteria.

The other toothbrushes also had something to offer, but this one stood out....

If some much can be done on a simple toothbrush, then the scope and limits are which are set by a manager not a product....

Gap between Promise and Execution in Marketing I

As a marketer we spend a lot of time and energy on conceptualization - how to position, advertise the brand. The message strategy, the right celebrity for the ad... and the list is long 

But do we put enough effort on execution of what gets promised..???

By execution I will give examples, Bingo has something called Mad Angles, the product is in the shape of triangles, what happens when more than half of the pack has broken triangle? You buy an Cadbury's Bourneville chocolate and once you have moved away from the shop and start eating it you realize that the product has been refrozen. These examples are not of the serious kind which can lead to health hazards, which obviously these also have serious implications.

And coming back to the theme with which I started the post, whom would you assign the responsibility to the retailer, the distributor, or the distributor sales man who loads the packets in the morning in the vehicle or the logistics guy... 

In theory we do talk about the internal marketing where other departments are also sensitised about marketing. I will continue this post with more examples from the ecommerce domain...

Summer Brands

With Summer setting in many marketers are rolling up their sleeves for the hot summer sales which will follow, most excited would be the Ice cream , Soft drink and AC marketers.....

Yesterday was in a typical kirana store buying the monthly regulars, interestingly the small shop is exactly on top of a larger EasyDay shop...but more on that later..

In the shop I saw the packs of Rasna ready-to-make drink, and suddenly started feeling nostalgic on how central the brand use to 25-30 years back in terms of the summer experience. The presence of the Rasna bottle in the monthly purchase bag would trigger a long elaborate process of preparing the drink, sugar + powder + concentrate (in a separate small bottle) and transferring the same into large glass bottles would mark the start of serious summer.

               

While I was still ruminating, my three old daughter coolly picked-up a bottle of Fanata and did not even look at the Rasna boxes… In today's world full of aerated drinks and instant drinks (sugar added) the excitement around older brands like Rasna is missing....

But from a branding perspective one does feel that the brand still has a lot of potential (not sure with the right target segment though..)

The brands which I very closely associate with summers would be Kelvinator ,  Target, Chacha Chowdry . …

Is "Fear of Bacteria" under threat

I think the last decade has seen the marketers capitalize on our fear of bacteria. The USP , if I were to use the term has been used by all from the toilet cleaners to the soaps to toothpaste guys. And this has been helping the sale of these products. But if suppose some one were to turn the concept on it's head and tell the consumers that some amount of bacteria (even the bad ones) is essential for healthy growth of children the fear of bacteria will come under threat and the marketers would be a worried lot.

This theory is called "hygiene hypothesis", which essentially says that diseases affect more individuals in the modern world where hygiene is given utmost importance.The exposure of bacteria early on helps develop a better immune system. But then what happens to the "100% Bacteria Free" proposition...

Brands Losing their way

I have always felt in the country we have had many good brands, and they have lost their way either due to mismanagement or sheer greed. I will share a few examples to elaborate my point of view,

Let us start in the cookery segment, where we have really old brands like prestige and hawkins. We have the experience of using these brands across many years; some of us would still have the 20 year old pressure cookers in their houses in working condition. The brand was built on their performance many years back, but if some one has bought a cooker from either of these companies in the recent years would have a very different story to tell. Do not get me wrong, I do not want to buy cookers which last for 20 years, but I want to buy products which perform. I have had a couple of bad experiences and I thought probably it was a factor of chance, but then when I saw the queue of people waiting to get the valve replaced, or getting their cookers repaired it makes me realize that the problem is much more acute than a few one-off cases. The unfortunate part is that there are no viable substitutes in the market, or maybe we see them as inferior just because we are so used to the old biggies.

My second example is from the mobile services domain. I am talking about the market leader, airtel. Till the time they got into financial pressure, the services were good, but then for the last couple of years you would find them giving you new unasked service and start charging you for the same. One will have to fight out and by the time it is discontinued the company makes some money. My emails to the ombudsman of the company have gone unanswered. And this again is not just across one number, but across many which I know. The disappointing point is that when the going is good the brands fulfill their promise but the moment they are under a little pressure they go back to the pre-liberalization mindset of trying to squeeze maximum out of the consumer without worrying about the future.

The third example is from another brand which I have a lot of admiration for - 'Big Bazaar'. I use to be a loyal customer buying my monthly groceries from them. Then for the last couple of years I had stopped visiting them. The other day I went to buy some groceries and was shocked by the approach they have adopted. In many products there was a difference of 30/- kg if you were to buy a half kg versus a one kg pack, which I found very difficult to digest and ended up walking out of the shop after making less half of my planned purchases. The core proposition which the brand 'Big Bazaar' stood for me is low-cost and I felt that they were fiddling with that core proposition itself.

Building a brand takes many years but destroying it takes a couple of bad experiences!!!!!!! And rebuilding the trust with the consumer would take longer, if it can ever be done.

Most Trusted Brands in India :Brand Equity 2011

Globally we have many brand ranking agencies which rank brands, like Interbrand and Brandz Top 100, but in India not much of formal ranking is done. Though some of these agencies have started working in India too, but the Brand Equity Most Trusted Brands Ranking is an annual ranking which is keenly followed. A look at the top ranking this year,

The major change this year has been that Colgate has come back to the top slot after many years and Nokia has dropped to number 5. Nokia's drop is perhaps reflective of its performance in the market place. The ranking is accompanied with a series of interesting write-ups on various brands,

Starting with how Colgate regained the top slot again, to the analysis of why Nokia fell from the top. Then there is an interesting piece by Pankaj Ghemewat on Coke and Globalization and by Nirmalya Kumar on how brands need to gain trust of the consumers, and become a positive force in the larger community. There are few more stories which one can read.

Brand India - Impact of CWG Scam and Super Bug Controversy

The last few weeks have been bad for Brand India, and the reasons being the way Common Wealth Games are been handled and the Super Bug origin theory.

Coming to the first issue of the Common Wealth Scam, though the full reports are awaited and like many other scams they might also be pushed under the carpet after the conclusion of the games. But the impact that this scam on the overall image of the country is a very high price to pay , and hopefully we should be able to salvage some pride by conducting the games successfully. It is shameful that our neighbors used the opportunity of hosting the Olympics to showcase the country's entry into the next league and our people here .......

Coming to the second controversy, attributing the origin of the super bug to India, and even naming it after the capital New Delhi-Metallo -1 (NDM-1) is something which will again go a long way in damaging the reputation of the country. There are many sides to this story and maybe it might turn out that the reports were doctored to suit the interest of a few companies or people in other countries, but my feeling is that the damage is done.

Both these incidents reinforce the idea of India being a corrupt and developing nation with poor facilities is not a good news on the 64th Independence day.

Last Mile Connectivity and Mahindra Gio

The last few years has seen quite a few attempts at breaking into the within the city transport segment, and Tata Ace has been the undisputed success story in the segment. Industry experts estimate that Ace has over 80% share of the 2,500crore small truck segment (one tonne capacity) and Ace can actually be credited with the creation of the segment. But this blog post is not about Ace, which I have written earlier, but about a new competitor which has entered the segment, Mahindra & Mahindra Gio, a 0.5 tonne small truck. The best part about the new launch is the price at which it is available Rs 1,67,000 which is at a slight premium versus the three wheelers and substantially lower than Ace which is around Rs 2,80,000. And in terms of carrying capacity Gio is able to take much higher load than the three wheelers. So in effect what Gio is also trying is create a new a segment for itself below Ace and just above the three-wheelers.

And over the next few years Gio will add to the credibility of India as a low cost automobile development center of the world.

In the company's official release Dr Pawan Goenka, President Automotive Sector says,

“With the launch of Mahindra Gio, we have created a new Compact Truck category in the commercial vehicle segment. The Mahindra Gio is the first of its kind entry level 4 wheel cargo vehicle, and is all set to change the dynamics of the small CV segment. As city limits gradually expand and distribution needs increase, the Mahindra Gio presents a high earning potential for customers who will benefit from its high mileage, low maintenance cost, optimum utilization of space and low acquisition cost,”

I think one element which both Ace and more recently Gio have been working on is to capture the pride associated with owning a three-wheeler versus a four-wheeler, and they have worked on that aspect by improving the driving comfort and styling in the driving cabin, with things like bucket seats, to give a feel-of-car, but then with Gio being priced so close to three wheelers one needs to see whether this would work for long.

But all in all I would rate Mahindra & Mahindra as one of those old economy companies which has responded very well to the opportunities brought out by opening up of the economy. The success it has had with Scorpio and Tractors in overseas market is something on which I deserves a separate post...

Hamara Bajaj

Some people may call it natural progression or evolution that the company which created the category in the country decides to stop producing scooters, and focus it's energies on motor bikes.

In fact in the pre-lib days it use to as part and parcel of the middle class house hold, even use to be integral part of the dowry ...and I am used to quoting it as an example of how long one had to wait to get a scooter versus the off-the shelf purchase in as many colours as you want today (99 for a scooty!!!!). But then when I read the news in the morning that Bajaj is exiting the scooters business, it brought a sense of nostalgia and sadness that after a few years we may not it plying on Indian roads ...

Bajaj says it wants to focus on making motorcycles, and maybe the decision was always around the corner after it stopped the production of Chetak a couple of years back , which was the largest selling scooter in the world at one point in time. But recently Mahindra and Mahindra made an entry into the category, all time rival Hero is also saying it is unable to keep up with the demand for its scooter brand 'Pleasure', sale of Honda 'Activa' has always been good, and TVS Motors is planning to add 110 cc Wego to its range.

With so much of activity in the category why is it that Bajaj wanting to stop making scooters, obviously it cannot keep making the same old scooter, but to leave a category??? The company says it wants to become the world's largest bike manufacturer and scooters limit it's focus?? somehow I am not convinced that it is the right decision, looking at the strong association of scooters and Bajaj.

Last few years have seen many strong brands in India getting lost , ( Deccan, Satyam..) maybe we will add it to the list. I look forward to comments from readers if they agree with me or not ...

Big Bazaar Versus Kellogg's

I should start with an apology that I have not updated the blog for more than a month now, will try and be more regular from now on....

I observed this new item a few days back and thought about writing about it, the fight between Big Bazaar and Kellogg's , and it is not first of the kind that Big Bazaar is involved in , some time back it was with Cadbury’s and even before that it was Lay's. All the three were removed from the shelves of Big Bazaar, and reasons given were the differences Big Bazaar had with the margins that were being given.

Some people might see it as a normal routine affair, bargaining between two parties for better margins, but it is not. It is part of the larger plan which big Bazaar has and the reality which marketers are walking into, the world which will be dominated by Dealer owned labels. In the news you can also read about how Big Bazaar is not too worried about the fact that Kellogg’s would not be there on its shelves, it has it's own Brand Tasty Treat which would be there as an substitute.

Now the typical FMCG marketer in India is used to be on a enviable position, the retailer being small and unorganized and at the mercy of the Brand marketers, who could afford to play from the position of strength. But this all will change in the near future.

The other day I had an opportunity to listen to Mr Manish Tiwary, who heads the Modern trade Division at HUL. a the division which deal with the organized retailers like Big Bazaars, Spencer’s and he shared his concerns how the dealer brands increasingly put pressure on the brand marketers. He said that the time when you could keep getting more customers just on the basis of cosmetic improvements to your brand is more or less over, and only those brands which have a very strong proposition and value for the customers will be able to survive.

Though in India the proportion of organized trade itself is very small and the proportion of the business of dealer owned labels even smaller, but one can see these events giving us a preview of the future holds for brand marketers.....

I had written more on Dealer Owned Brands earlier also , Link1,
Link2

Regional Brands in India gaining over the larger brands??

In many product categories one can see the emergence of very strong regional brands at the number two or three slots. In last decade or so we have seen these regional players taking the fight to the more experienced marketing companies. These small and medium brands have been giving sleepless nights to their multinational counter parts , be it a Cavinkare or Jyothi laboratories in the south , or a Ghadi detergent in UP or Wagh Bakri tea in the west . The sluggishness of slowdown only adds to the growth of these smaller players.

The thought was actually triggered by the recent success achieved by santoor in becoming the number three player in the highly competitive soap market, though even Godrej's No1 is also claiming the number three slot in the market according to some reports. A recent report also shows that HUL has been losing market share in the shampoo market to companies like Dabur. And from almost nowhere Anchor toothpaste has also emerged as the number three player in the highly competitive toothpaste market which has deeply entrenched players like colgate...

Other strong regional brands are,Ahmedabad-based Paras Pharmaceuticals, North-based Surya foods with its Priya brand of biscuits, Emani.....

India in my understanding would predominantly be a market of regional brands, because the regional differences within the markets is too great to be catered to by a single national brand, though the phenomenon is yet to manifest itself fully due to the lack of economies of scale at these levels, but in the future as these regional markets mature so would brands catering to them.

Maggi Noodles India the journey continues..

I have been sort of following up on 25 year celebrations on Maggi Noodles in India, and in the Sunday Times of India saw the print ad which sort of follows up on the Meri Maggi theme where consumers write back on their own stories with the brand, a very good way of bringing out how consumers have developed a very close bond with the brand in the last 25 years. The campaign has a 360 degree coverage , spanning web, OOH, TV , Mobile and newspaper. Thought will share the print ad with my readers,

My earlier post on Maggi Noodles, Link

Maruti Vs Hyundai Ads

I wanted to write on the Hyundai ad where it did a comparison of Maruti Suzuki's Ritz in the beginning of the month, but then somehow it slipped out of my mind, but now with Maruti reacting to Hyundai's ad by coming up with a comparative ad of A Star Vs i10 a few days back forced me to comment on it. link

Competititors reacting to each other's ad seems to be a futile exercise, because the focus of these ads is not the consumer, but a competitor and all you are trying do is to counter whatever was said in the earlier ad . A waste of resources and energy , which does not help in anyway the decision making process of buying a car.

Infact buying a car in India, especially at the entry level tends to be more involved and long drawn decision than in the developed context. For many of us it still means a substantial investment and the information we seek is much higher. Does this sort of mud-slinging contest of ads help in anyway the consumer wanting to buy a car? It may help massage the ego of a few in the companies but ....

This sort of reactive and comparative ads is not something which is new, Pepsi Vs Coke, Colgate Vs Pepsodent or the more recent Horlicks Vs Complan, and even for Hyundai and Maruti this is not new....

Mahindra Satyam - Rebranding

Sometime back when the Satyam fiasco happened I had written on how we might actually end up losing one more very powerful brand in India. I would have added it up the list of brands lost in the country , even higher than the loss of Deccan. But the current re-branding of Satyam to Mahindra Satyam seems to have salvaged the situation. The positives of this rebranding exercise has been that they would be able to retain the strength of brand Satyam and add the assurance of Mahindra. Because in spite of all the troubles for the company people have more or less seen it as the result of the doings of a single person and not the company as a whole , and even the recent better than expected also added to the belief that Satyam as a company is still doing well.

But I think the external re-branding exercise is just half of the story, the more difficult exercise would be reassure the employees , motivate them and assimilate them into Mahindra...

Is branded fuel worth the price???

Almost a decade back the fear of competition forced the PSU oil companies to become more market savvy, the logos were changed , the retail outlets were refurbished, some of them started their own retail ventures to make best use of the available space and along with that came the concept of branded fuel. Each of them had their own brand of extra mileage fuel and though people were initially sceptical about the actual benefit now many users have slowly started using branded fuel...

Now there are conflicting news on the actual benefit that a user might derive out of using branded fuel. The state-run oil companies have not been able to back up the claims to Monopolies and Restrictive trade practices Comission (MRTPC)that the branded fuel gives higher mileage and better engine performance. Link Though a cursory visit to their websites provides many details of the benefits of branded fuel, HP Power, IOC Speed

A couple of years back I had written about my observation on how branded fuel was being used by auto-riskha drivers, which showed that they were able to get the extra mileage by using branded fuel. And managers at the oil companies are clear on the benefits from these. Maybe there is an urgent need on the part of the companies to react quickly and provide the backing for their claims on branded fuel otherwise it could lead to a back lash from consumers.

Because consumer value is part perception and part reality, and a successful product is a good mix of both, same hold true for branded fuel, once the users starts doubting the authenticity of the claims of the company sales and bound to drop,

Subhiksha Retail - Indian Brand in trouble?

In my quest to document Indian brands I had made a list of those which i would like to write about and there were quite a few retail brands in that (one of the reasons could be that retail is not still open fully to foreign players). Kishore Biyani's - Pantaloons and Big Bazaar are on top of the list.  They have contributed to Indian retail by being pioneers and reshaping the retail landscape in the country by adapting to conditions in the country. But the post is not about BigBazzar, which would deserve a separate post but on Subhiksha, largest retailer in the country. But unfortunately the post was triggered by the news that the retail slow down is forcing them to close down half of their 1600 outlets. More about that later, first on what Subhiska offers to the Indian consumer.

Subhiskha evolved a model of retail which is unique to India or as Mr R Subramanian would like to put it the  'Indian Format of Retailing'. They did not try and ape the international retail model, of having larger stores  with air conditioning and other extra frills. Their typical shops are much smaller in size and in a prime localities in a city with no air conditioning and fancy shelves and designer lights.

The value proposition that Subhiskha offers to the typical India consumers is load and clear, first convenience - by locating them in key locations within the city they are actually more accessible than there larger cousins , so no need to drive and reach them. And the consumer can afford to buy in smaller quantities and more frequently. The second value to the customer was in terms of savings , most of the products sold in Subshikha would be sold on discount . As any one who would have bought at Subhiska would have observed the clear price advantage that they would get.

Only thing which went against them that was that one could not be  get all brands that they wanted in their outlets; essentially the choice was limited. It could have been driven by strategy of stocking a few brands on which they were able to get a good offer from the manufactures or supply chain bottlenecks. So there would be many consumers who would come and buy a few products from them and go on to buy the others from another retailer.

The Subhiska story has been highlighted in the media as a success, link  . Story of R Subramanian of Subhiskha is one which inspires many of us, a first generation entrepreneur who went on to build the largest retail chain in India. More can be read about him in the book 'Stay hungry and Foolish' which documents the stories of 25 entrepreneurs from IIMA. 

Coming back to the current crisis which they are supposedly going through, could be the  result of a multitude of factors; the overall slow down in retail sales, the rapid expansion that they have done in the last year or so, which would be leading to operational issues. My opinion is that Subhishka is not new to difficult times and in the past gone through them successfully and come out stronger , hopefully this around also the story would be same, though the current issues seem more challenging....

Thumps Up the No 1 Cola Brand in India

Whenever I ask the question which is the No 1 cola brand in the country, many people assume it is either Pepsi or Coca Cola, but it is Thums Up. Though it was sold off by the Chauhan brothers to Coca Cola in 1993 , I would still classify it as an Indian brand which has been around since 1977. Initially when the Chauhan's sold it off for $60 million, many analysts thought that it was a good deal because many believed that the brand would anyway disappear in a short time, but the story was not supposed to be so simple.

Coca Cola bought the brand and with it the access to the its bottling and distribution network, which they saw as a effective way of countering Pepsi which has a few years of head start in the country. Initially Coca Cola wanted wanted to kill the brand slowly , as they were sure that most of the consumers would shift over to to Coca Cola , so they decided to stop all promo support of the brand and waited for it to die, but it took them some years to realise that the brand was not going to die and was infact doing well in spite of almost zero support from the company. It was then that they realised that they would have to actually manage two brands in the country. 

Then the company moved to the second level of trying to use it as a flanker brand against Pepsi. They started using Thums Up to attack Pepsi openly by challenging them on a blind taste challenge and so on. Obviously they have slowly realised that they are under utilising the brand as just a flanker and there was more value which could be extracted out of the brand and thus today brand Thums Up accounts for the largest share of its promotional budget and gets the attention it deserves as a separate brand. 

The case of Thums Up highlights the myopic view with which many multinational companies operate in the country, they assume that brands which have a a very strong following in their home grounds would have similar following in India, which is not necessarily true. Though Coke has learnt through their experiences and are adapting and changing their branding strategies according to the needs of the local market. 

In fact even with the lemon based drink Limca there is a similar story in India. The brand has its own set of loyal customers in the marketplace, and they still prefer it over many other lemons based offerings in the market.  I have heard that coca cola has to struggle with its bottlers to free up lines for other brands in summers when they want to use it for Limca.

Slumdog Millionaire and Brand India

The movie has created a lot of buzz, winning 4 Golden Globes and now 10 Oscar nominations. We would know how many they will manage to win on 22 February. This winning of the golden globes and Oscar nominations has created a lot of media buzz, one can see a number of debates and discussions happening on the movie.

At one end there are many people who are criticising the portrayal of poverty and the slums of Mumbai and at the other there is a lot of appreciation coming along for the movie.

I tend to take a rather negative view, I see the movie projecting a limited view of the reality called India. This is not say that we do not have urban poverty or it is a non issue, it is infact an issue which needs to be given highest priority, but movies like these in a way take us back to the era when India was seen as a nation of snake charmers.

A couple of decades back a movie like this would have added some value as it would have brought brand India back into memory of people but today i feel that we have moved beyond the awareness stage, we are infact in a stage where we have to build the right values that we want to promote. In the last few years the image of the country has changed to that of one with young white collar software workers, and the Indian growth story is slowly sinking in. We have been making conscious effort to project the country as an attractive investment destination. And that is where I feel slumdog millionaire would do more harm than good for image of the country.

Inspite of all this I wish that they win a lot of Oscars on 22nd....