Yes, we are moving forward to our first panel discussion of the day, which will talk about the new age of personalized marketing, data, analytics and customer insights. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me and give a big round of applause, even the virtual one for our session chair, Mr. Shekhar Banerjee, Chief Client Officer and Office Head Best for WaveMaker. And as I welcome our panelists, join me in welcoming them, Mr. Ravi Sankhanam, CMO, HDFC. Our second panelist is Ms. Anurita Chopra, Area Marketing Lead, Oral Health, GSK Consumer Healthcare. We also have Ms. Anuja Mishra, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Godrej Consumer. On our panel, we have Mr. Vivek Shrivastava, Head Marketing, Passenger Vehicle, Business Unit, Data Motors. I'd also like to welcome Mr. Alaksharit Tripathi, Industry Head Consumer Packaged Goods in Mobi. Last but not the least, welcoming Mr. Karan Ravindra Chaitapkar, Head of Digital ABP Network. A very warm welcome to all our panelists and I'd hand over the screen to Mr. Banerjee to take this panel discussion forward. And fantastic. Thank you so much. Thanks for this generous introduction. So quickly, I hope I'm audible and everything is great. So I'm just rolling with this discussion. Good evening to everyone. And thanks for logging in today to hear us. I am Shekhar Banerjee, Chief Client Officer and Officer for Vivek Makar India. And I have a panel of Mavericks for this topic. To set the context, we have seen a lot of action in digital marketing in the last 24 months. Working across sectors and with clients like Mondly's, L'Oreal, ITC, Netflix, Vodafone Idea, First Cry or Dream11, to name a few, I actually have been quite lucky at a very good position to observe some major shifts how marketers are now organized to communicate with this hyper-connected consumer. We knew winter is coming, but the last 12, 16 months has disproportionately accelerated this journey. And as targetable, digital audience basically is going up. Most marketing organizations have accelerated the digital transformation. With respect to measurement, tech stack, and consumer value estimation. While the use cases of personalized marketing ranges from new product development to online fulfillment, one of the most valued use cases, most organizations are chasing today is with position targeting and personalized communication. And I want to use this next 30, 40 minutes to get our panel's view on the same. With that, let me just move into this quick context setting. Let me just move into the first question that I have. And I will need a variety of opinion on this one from different sector. So I will ask for sector view on this one in terms of what is your definition of personalized marketing to start with? And what are the kind of use cases you are seeing in your organization with such major investment organizations today are doing in terms of structuring the data spying audiences and how they collect data? Maybe let me first ask from Ravi and his perspective on this sector, how you see Ravi this. Welcome all, I hope everybody is safe and sound and everybody is out of the pandemic very quickly. See the banking and financial services industry has a slightly different perspective on personalization. In my view, it's like if you do not personalize, you don't have any reason to exist because the amount of first party data that you have is phenomenally very high. It's very different from what, for example, Anuritha will have it in the oral care. You don't know much of your customers. What do they do on a daily basis? In the banking sector, you have their income, you have their expenditure, where they spend, what they do. And it's also available on a longitudinal timescale. So the ability of you to put all these things together to get a better profile of understanding of who your consumer is, it's like the bare minimum that you need to do. If you don't do that, then I don't think you have a reason to exist anyway. Yeah, that's fantastic, Ravi to hear from you. In fact, you won't believe, I wanted to move straight to Anuritha and ask her view, because it's actually a new name to her also. Anuritha means a completely different sector, completely different way you engage with consumers today. How do you see this? Well, I guess I'll possibly take a lead from what Ravi said that he's right. We, of course, because we come from health care, we are very, very careful about what we call PI, which is personal information. So for us, the medical data of consumers is definitely from a constant based application. And having said that, what we also do is cohort based marketing. What that means is that a lot of science and a lot of data goes into cluster mapping because you can look at digestives, you could look at toothpaste, you could look at even analgesics like prosin, you could look at autraven, which is respiratory. Now, you have cohorts, you have people who behave very like minded, who will have, you know, adjacent categories that they buy. Where is this data really coming in from all sorts of platforms, be it e-commerce, be it actually, you know, our interaction with these consumers at different points of contact and different points of sale, of course, during times of COVID, that's a bit, you know, fractured. But the other cohort, which is very, very critical for us, is what we call the expert base, which is all our health care practitioners. So we have consumers and we have our advocates. And you do market to them too in the sense that they need to believe in your brand to prescribe that brand. They need to believe in the science behind that brand. So you need to understand what is it that they are looking for in terms of science. So and that's where cohort based targeting really, really works. It may not be as personal as Ravi put it in the space of banking and financial institutions for sure. But it's certainly personalized in terms of understanding what that particular cohort based on where that person is, be it rural, be it lower tier India, be it lifestyle orientation, health platform orientation, et cetera. Let me add a bit of a dimension because one is targeting also. But I want to ask this to Vivek on the data spine, how he sees this vision in your sector. There's a pre and a post and the post, the data usage might be very different. And so just talk to us through how you're seeing this value exchange. Yeah, thanks Sheta. So see the automotive segment has actually been built over the last many decades around standardization. So really personalization is a completely opposite current to follow. But I guess as an industry, we are embracing it to begin with. Obviously, the marketing side is where we take baby steps. We heard about Anurita talking about cohorts and stuff. So that's exactly what we do. We use tech from what our digital media agencies provide in terms of trying to at least address cohorts differently so that we don't go completely wrong in terms of our messaging. But happy to say that we are also taking the one step ahead. You know, trying to get the intelligence into the digital media. So once a customer comes to our website and then it goes to a showroom, we're able to kind of continue the journey so that the customer doesn't have to start from zero. We are trying to integrate personalization into our products aspect where customers are able to choose certain elements that he likes and we make a car specifically for him or her. And there's no limit to that. You know, once we get into the personalization space, it can go up to the level of choosing individual features. But it's not too much of a dream. Probably in the next one or two years, we should be going in that direction. But as you said, importantly, you know, it's on the ownership side on how we are better able to track customer needs, usage patterns and tailor our post-sale services to suit each customer's needs and timing, particular necessities, which is actually going to be a hygiene in the future. Very much like what Ravi said, you know, if you don't embrace that personalization for our active users, we'll never be able to survive. Fantastic. Thanks, Vivek, for adding this perspective. Now when we talk about, see, this is basically personalization, personalized marketing ranges from communication to overall. So that we've got a great perspective in the first question about overall perspective. Bringing it down to communicating with our customers. Precision targeting versus broad targeting. And we know there's a cost to doing precision targeting and personalization. So my question is, do we need to be so obsessed with personalization? And more so because does it make ROI sense, especially because you end up spending a lot more extra cost in tech, in targeting, pure media deployment, you end up actually spending a lot more air cost. Does it make sense? Anuja, maybe your perspective on this, how do you see that? You know, I think Shaker, like any spend, you know, whether that's mass television spend or that's targeting or precision targeting, I think it's fundamentally a function of ROIs, like you said in ROAS, and both short-term and long-term. You know, when you look at an industry like one that I operate in, which is FMCG, you know, pretty much the country is your target audience, right? In a very conventional sense, we would look at anyone who's 18 to 35, SCC ABCD, right? And that's pretty much nobody left out of the segment. But I think within FMCG as well, you know, as we're kind of looking to move up tiers, looking to move up, you know, there's almost a pyramid of offerings and opportunities. I would think that we are kind of tending towards precision marketing, and of course, that will obviously vary by categories, right? So like, you know, Ravi rightly spoke of, when it comes to banking, you know, banking is personalization and nothing else, right? But when it comes to FMCG, there is a certain aspect of the product, and then there is a certain aspect of, you know, awareness, consideration, and then getting down to engagement. So I think precision targeting in itself will have a very different definition and a very different metric for every industry. I think FMCG is still fairly far away, you know, but the more you sort of move towards higher value, you know, products and categories and conversions, it has, I think, really where your ROI start to get justified. Yeah, in fact, let me throw this question to Alakshit also, given the range that he ends up seeing at InMobi, how do you, what do you feel about that, ROI? So yeah, like all of you already have mentioned, right? So it depends on industry to industry, but if I look at it as a tech player, right? It's about the economies of scale and scope, right? So with more precision, you start lacking the scale. As you start lacking the scale, your economies of scale are not gonna work. But if you can replicate the same thing, right? With two other things, how quickly, how easily can you replicate? That will give you this economies of scope. So that opens up some window for the ROI. And let me give you another perspective on this drawing from what was earlier mentioned, right? That the entire population is your TG, right? Now, how do you slice and dice that TG? For example, there can be one way of personalization where you are talking about cricket-led messaging to a cricket enthusiast, music-led messaging to a music enthusiast. Now, that will require a whole lot of different content-building than if I cut the audiences in a different way, where I say that what are the different barriers or adoption for this particular product among the cohort that I have in mind, right? Now, I need to just highlight my one product value to that particular audience base. And that's how I customize it. That kind of personalization gives you a better ROI. And this is something that we are doing with one of the largest technicality players in Southeast Asia, right? So they are doing this study, creating those seed audiences and building up on those cohorts accordingly. Okay, Alex, you're just continuing on the same topic that the way you're explaining and the range you're talking about. What is the range of value unlock you have seen in personalized marketing, from top funnel to bottom funnel, depending on how you're actually deployed it? What is the range you have seen roughly? So it will be quite different for different industries, right? So top of the funnel, if you think about it, the top of the funnel is going to be awareness lifting, right? You might not have such a major change with personalization in the awareness of the top of the mind we call of the brand. It is at the bottom of the funnel. And like Ravi was saying about the BFSI as an industry, where that is the key metric that will matter. That's the thing that is going to probably derive. So personalization makes a lot of sense when you are looking at the bottom of the funnel, right? Then you will look at better ROIs and do you have a right tools to measure that ROI, right? In BFSI, it's a lot more easier to measure that ROI because the entire journey can be on digital. But for an FMCG player, that might not be the case, right? So some part of the journey is there on digital and other is in the offline store. How do you marry that information? So you don't even get to see the entire picture of it, right? Karan, what's your view on this? You've heard the different opinions. So yeah, I've heard from Ravi, Tony and everyone, and we are the least in that bottom pile of having data because we don't get any personal information, mostly publishers are at that. So we have mostly behavioral data, so we can play around with that. So for the longest period of time, people don't consider SU as personal marketing, personalized marketing. It is personalized marketing at the end of the day because you're going after the intent of the user on Google. It's keywords, right? You're going to make sure that these bunch of keywords cohorts you target, and that's a direct transfer to your website and direct conversion. Considering the whole funnel, if you see, I'll go, since I have an agency background, I'll just go with an example for awareness and consideration and final purchase. So I'll just, some awareness background, I agree with most of the guys, but we should actually at least at the awareness stage have data, take the data in, right? Because this is digital marketing, right? We need to target, we need to retire. So we need to make sure that every point and the customer journey in the awareness campaign itself, right, which is a broader campaign, we make sure that we get the clicks right, we get a journey right, so that we get all the data we need to retarget. So that's important from awareness, right? So that's the value lad for future campaigns when you do precision campaigning, right? Because you have your own data, it'll be cheaper, right? Considering you have done those buckets up there, then for example, there is a simple remittance site which we have done, it's a personalized marketing entry and we did, they had this simple campaign of running across all countries remittances, right? And then the charges were different. So what we did was just make sure the cohorts are done as per country and the simple thing. And just on the console, on the Facebook console, we ran personalized ads, right? On those cohorts and then the personal landing page on the those cohorts and then the buying also happens on that same personalized scheme. The whole journey, have the consistency till consideration. If you don't have consistency to consideration, you will not get a lead, right? Again, on the lead page, every single field needs to be tracked. What you're writing irrespective of whether submit is best or not, right? The landing page is crucial here, right? You have to personalize. Again, after the landing page, especially in direct sales like BFSI is rightly pointed out, we should automate most of the things because most of, as I rightly pointed out, banking has a lot of data, right? They just can automate. Most of us are customers. So once you have some data, you just have to automate the thing and give personal loans out of credit card directly sanctioned later than your account could come. So why do we wait? And then the remaining can go. So after consideration to final purchase can be totally automated, right? But for certain set of cohorts or certain set of users. So that is possible in banking. Again, a set of, on the consideration topic in the final, you know, a lot of people who write in forms don't, we don't use the data at all forever. It's lying there, a lot of data, a small, a broken form example, I've just got you. They had some 0.3 million of this kind of data. We just ran a simple AI analysis on personas, gendered a persona and did a personalized email marketing, simple email marketing. And we got that conversion on that data to 6%, right? Giving offers to those guys. And that currently now we are using as an automated funnel from consideration, if someone backs out, it's kind of not to 20%. So I'm just saying that if we track data across these three, especially these three, awareness, consideration that is once he reaches our data and the final purchase, we actually can convert a lot. And there is where we lack. So awareness has to have data in consideration. We should track each and every point and automate most of the things till final purchase. While I'm hearing you, Karan, what would be amazing for the audiences here, if you're able to say that if we personalize, this is the kind of uplift typically you have seen in your category, that would be like a... So I'll just show you the same example of the broken, the guy was around 0.1%, 0.3%, the remittance guy. We moved for personalized marketing, we moved it to 3%, right? For consideration dropout, right? That data, they never used to use it only it is dormant data, right? We just made sure we did some analysis on the age, whatever data they had over a period of time and we just offered them certain things. And that conversion went up to 6% from 0 to 6%. And now it is 20% on direct funnel, basically. Whenever someone comes and it doesn't take the offer, then we go into the email marketing bit. For banking, it's automated. So if I say ICICI, sorry, I didn't mean to say this. You can change it. You can change it. So we automated the final using Sibyl report, direct loan sanction later in, yeah. So that's around how much conversion, it's direct from intent to sanction later in 10 minutes flat after platform, that's huge. Yeah, Ravi, what do you think about it? It means on this, what is the range as for you? See the range as Alexi was telling depends on which funnel part you look at. And I have a simple theory.  So why is this question of personalization not required? I can't generally say you're a human being 40 years plus age and let me talk to your human being 40 years plus age. It doesn't work like that. So we need to see how we can actually see the lift and the lift that we see depends on what is the kind of metrics that we want to see based on the objective that we have. And we have the 19th largest website in the country. We get almost eight crore visits in a month for HDFC Bank website. And that's the kind of data that we are generating not from the transactions that you do in your account but what you do in our website. And then we also have mobile banking and net banking where people come and also look at something and don't do any transaction. So if I look at all these stuff and I just put it together, it becomes 40 terabyte of data. Now what we need to do is first attract traffic and that's a very different level of personalization we do. And that's where cohorts marketing and all help because there are lots of internal data that we have. One is to attract the past customer who is already with us. So where are they available? How do we bring them onto our site? Second is look alike modeling and trying to find similar people. And that's where all the cohorts marketing help. And when they come in, 95% of the experience on our website is personalized. Meaning our website is different for all the eight crore people, very different. Purely, and that requires a huge amount of technology investment and automation. And we have actually shown that that personalization plus the traffic generation has to get it into a lead and then the journey has to be automated. And we have a target to get 25% of our business directly from digital. With no human touch. And for that, we need to get into various levels of personalization. We don't believe personalization is about communication personalization. It's about finding the right set of cohorts for the right set of offer. How can you personalize an offer? How can you personalize the communication? How can you personalize the channel? When do you want to communicate? That's also personalization. But understanding the context of the customer and then trying to work it out is all about personalization and personalization actually runs through the entire funnel for this. Absolutely. Very well put Ravi on this one because the use cases are, like you said, in your use cases are very varied in how people see content, how they engage with you. All for that matter, how do we market to them? So in continuation to this point only and because you give the range, I have a question which is like degree of personalization is varied also. Within that also there's a degree of personalization you do. There's a CRM based one-to-one or there are the standard of the shelf cohorts that you pick up from Google's and Facebook. And in between then there is a classic way so you have audience platform that marketers build at the end kind of a DMP with which you actually go to the consumers and talk whether it is a product offering or for that matter again when it comes to basically how you communicate to them. So standing today, what do you think Ravi? First maybe you only as a continuation, where should we focus on? Because they all again are complex journey in Excel. See, if you have a lot of first party data, the best thing that you can invest is to start with your intelligence inside the company. So you need to have a very good CDP to put all the data together to understand profiles of customer and you keep building those profiles based on the inputs that you get. So first and foremost is to get the CDP. Second is to get a phenomenal artificial intelligence and I have a team of almost 45 data scientists working with us. So the entire analytics team is actually looking at this data trying to make sense of this humongous amount of data to add to the profile of the customers. So once you do these two things then you have the actual base material for you to build everything else. So first is to concentrate on a CDP then to concentrate on analytics to understand the data to create better profiles of customers. And then third part is to attract the customers on your website, the content and all. And the one final thing which I always say is finally the end of the day customer is a human being. So please remember 50% of your work is to talk to the human being and don't look at data loop. So how do you marry the data, the technology and the human patch to bring together and how many times you have called a customer because what I see happening now is people are so enamored by the data and the tools and all those stuff. They forget there is a human being behind that. So the full force is always about saying, okay, this is the data that is coming out. So many people have dropped off and people immediately go into analytics and keeps telling us like this is the drop-off we will change this way, we'll change the journey this way, we'll capture this data. The first question I ask is, have you picked up the phone and talk to these customers? Let's talk to the customers. Let's understand what's their viewpoint. So once you get the human and technology mixed together getting a CDP, getting the analytics in place and the rest is all available everywhere in the world. It's very easy to go into a journey. Amazing, amazing. There cannot be a more personalized way to do it than actually picking up the call and talking to a person. So let me just reverse it. Your starting point is CDP. Anurita, what do you think? What will be your starting point given again the category sector that you're working in? So I am tempted to say that all of it, because what can you choose really? One, are you saying that internally you do not collate data, you do not see cross patterns, you do not do internal analytics to be able to segment audiences better and be able to do sharper targeting. And I think it's been said that, look, everything is ROI-lit. So it's not about the absolute, it's about the percent, it's about the return. So if it's speaking business sense, it makes business sense.  Yeah, exactly that same feeling that how do you, so of course we do not have the wherewithal or the need in that sense to connect that personally to people. But as I said earlier, that for example, a brand like Sensodyne, it's so centric on food and food triggers. Now, how about it that you're sitting up in Delhi and it's really hot, it's filtering hot and you are served as an image and a dynamic, you are served a glass of cold water as your food trigger because that is a trigger of food sensitivity.  So you combine weather triggers with food triggers, but how do you curate this? And therefore, of course, curated platform or search engines or partners like Google and Facebook do offer that platform to you. On the other hand, let me flip it completely on its head, which is you also need influencers. So for example, chefs who are curating dishes for us, which are also sensitivity triggers. How do you partner with them and keep the consumer engaged because it's not just information that consumers are looking for when they're looking at brands which connect with them emotionally as well. Then there are chef influences that you talk at on Insta and you drive consumer participation because brand stories are also human. Again, how do you resonate with a consumer at exactly that right point in time and therefore the cohort, the topicality, how do you ensure that there is a cross mapping of data happening exactly at the same time indigestion will happen at any point in time. There is no seasonality to it. It's just when you overeat and therefore again, the kind of food that you're talking to at people in North will be very different from the kind of food that you're talking to people in the South. So that's how region-wise, lifestyle-wise, moment-wise, you know, for example, there is flu season and that's where cross and auto-driven comes in and that's when weather again plays into the big picture. So you see, there's a lot of cross mapping, cross connection, data collation, but more importantly, it's not linear. It's a web and that's our internal teams as well as the external partners with whom we work are designed to be able to give us intelligent cohorts and intelligent spaces where we connect to the consumer so that he or she feels that you're talking to him or her. I may not be able to address you exactly by your name and I may not choose to do that, but at least you will know that I'm feeling exactly what you're feeling and I'm talking the language that you want me to talk about exactly at that point in time. So that's how it is. You know, a lot of questions that I asked also sex up for a trap and we heard everyone's opinion on this. We talked about how specific you can get into targeting and personalization. We even, I in fact have personally worked on a client and a brand which was able to personalize till the level of the person has a dog and can go out for a walk at this time and therefore what should be the product offering there. So changing gear, I have actually a question which is very, very pertinent to today's time is personalization is also construed as invasion of policy and wall gardens have suddenly taken a stance to cover it. Your POV, how much is good? Anujya, maybe what's your POV on this? How much is good? You know, again, I think it's one a function of the business need and I think too it's also a function of, I think on how you define firewalls of values and honestly ethics, right? And we as an organization, for example, have decided that we limit ourselves to contextual marketing, to cohort marketing, but we would not go to a point that potentially makes a consumer uncomfortable and really what's the realm of uncomfortable? You know, if I'm talking about a brand of soap or a disinfectant spray, do I really need to do a one-on-one email marketing? Does that actually spook the consumer out? Or do you want to say that, you know, what I think you have a vaccine slot today and so you should be carrying this spray? That's a little spooky, right? But so I think the important point, really, Shepha, over here is understanding and respecting more importantly the realm of the consumer's privacy as much as I as a consumer wouldn't want to be invaded, right? There's a marketer side to me. There's also a consumer side to me. And as much as, you know, where marketers were also targeted all the time and at times it's annoying, right? So I think it's really about saying, you know, almost drawing at least in an FMCG world a one-nine-ninety of an equivalent, right? To say that while I'm going to broadcast my larger messaging and I completely agree with Anurata that, you know, every piece of communication needs to be laden with insight and relevance and a certain emotional connect, you know, for even a brand that's finally, you know, a personal wash brand. But I may then decide to only, you know, interact more actively with, let's say, age to 10% of that larger base and finally maybe engage with a very distilled, you know, one to 2% of those people because those are people who are more welcoming, you know, who are more actively seeking and searching that opportunity. But I really feel like, you know, it's a very fine line at this point, really not. I don't think it's defined in the ecosystem, right? Of what's really invading privacy versus, you know, what's kind of almost, you know, embracing the consumer. So it's really, I think, personal guardrails and personal virtues of where you draw the line. You know, to say, this is where I think my category, you know, does not need to communicate at a personal level any more than a cohort or an interest-led piece is what I think. Vivek, what's your take on this one? Because, again, you have very specific personalized data, PI data that will be there. That's your, take on this. Yeah, very similar, in fact, and especially coming from the data group, we are bound by a lot of internal ethics. And to the extent that many times, even when the customer opts in for some certain messaging option for some kind of a facility, we apply our own filter and try not to access that area of the customer line. And in terms of prioritization, we rather not get into the gray side of things. We largely restrict ourselves to cohorts. And the only area where we really go into a little bit of personalization is, like I said earlier, in terms of the product development or specific choices that, you know, the customer makes about the product that he or she wants. But in terms of communication or a market outrage point of view, we restrict it to cohort segment. Just continuing on the same thought, because something we talked about is the marketing side of it and then the consumer side of it, the way I'm just capturing it. How do you bridge the gap between this perception of what consumers want and the reality of what consumers actually want? Vivek, how do you do that? I mean, that's really the magic of any business, I guess. But yes, especially in automotive category, the stakes are really high. Considering the kind of investments we need to make in our products and our product choices, largely depending on consumer preferences, very specific preferences. The way we do it is on two sides. On one side is really deep consumer insight. And we look at trends rather than in a particular point of time. And these trends are across very, very wide spectrum. It could be what's happening at society at large, what's happening in other similar countries. What are the usage and attitude elements that creep into customers' mindset? Even, you know, we track how a customer uses their touch screen phones or iPads. That makes a big difference in terms of how we decide what really the customer wants. One thing that's very obvious is that, you know, the obvious is never right. We've had to take a lot of leap of faiths in the last few years. But at the same time that I told you, there's another side to it. A lot of social listening does help, especially in terms of our customer mindset is changing and what are the preferred elements, right? Up to color choices, you know, the fashion industry gives us a lot of inputs on what we really want. We do a lot of mix and match of, you know, social listening on various elements, right? From the way people holiday, what are the color codes of clothes people buy for their applications and stuff like that. So it's a combination of many things. And we look at trends rather than in specific, I hope that answers your question. Yeah, it does. In fact, it brings me to the last question also to the panel. And because the discussion we are doing is quite complex and it has major impact on how organization behave or how they actually go to market also. So my last question to the panel will be, what will it take to be successful in this journey? And you think the partner ecosystem that you're working with today, whether internally or externally, are ready to navigate you through these major changes that are happening today? Maybe Ravi, you can go first on this one and give your opinion, especially because the scale at a banking sector you're seeing. I'm not a do-stace opinion seeker. I think everything is fine. World has its own way of coming out. If you are coming out of COVID, we'll come out of all these stuff also. The ecosystem is pretty good and the people who do not have first party data will have a problem. People who have extensive first party data, I don't think we need to bother about cookie crumble and all those stuff. And privacy is something which is extremely important even for the financial services industry because at the end of the day, I for one cannot access your account and that's a way we have built it. So it's important to be very clear that the ecosystem will support. And if you do not have first party data, you need to start collecting the first party data and that is how the ecosystem will support you. Okay. And Alakshar, what's your point of view again on this one and especially because you partner with a lot of them? Yeah. So it's a different picture and I think Ravi just captured that, right? The thing about the first party data, right? So that's the focus that we are seeing even from the CPG players in the market right now, right? So the ecosystem will be continuously evolving. It's not going to be static, right? So more challenges we see. So for example, we are looking at the cookie list world, like there are IOs 14 where the ad tracking will be an option for the user to choose. So as we move beyond this, the first party data becomes important. So now we get it up and we are providing with those solutions. So at every stage, this is system would evolve and it's only getting better, right? So back in the day, you had ad networks, right? Now you have an exchange, you have SSP, you have DSP. There's a lot of transparency in the system. There are different things that each player is doing. There are different levels of expertise everyone is building, right? And at each level, even the privacy, right? Is being managed with the value exchange, right? So if I am taking this data from you, then what am I giving you in return, right? So if I ask for your PII, am I sending you a sample for a trial, right? That's why I need your home address or I'm just asking for the home address just because I want to keep it for at some point of time to be used. So each part is building up is what I would be. Fantastic. That's almost brings us to the closure of the panel just to summarize you. We all heard the range specifically across sectors how the journey of personalization is going just to capture again, it's not just about how you talk to the consumers. It is also about how we are designed for our consumers from every touch point, whether it is from products that you offer, the value exchange that you establish and different touch points, how you communicate to them or for that matter, how you again engage with them in their entire customer life time. And a lot is needed to make it happen. Great mind, knowing that they are human beings, technology that is able to process, connect and make this ecosystem work for all of us. And it's gonna be an ongoing journey and as the policies change, as the ecosystems evolve, our partners evolve, there will be a lot of modular approaches that will emerge and to be a very exciting space to see in next 12 to 15 months for sure. So with that, we come to the closure of our panel discussion. And thank you so much for spending this time with us and hearing us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Banerjee for stirring this very interesting conversation and thank you to all our panelists for taking out the time and being here and sharing your insights on the platform. Once again, from Exchange for Media Group, we thank each one of you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


I'm delighted to have secured this debate to mark Action, Missy Thuloma Day, on the 7th of July. I thank all colleagues for supporting my motion and welcoming intention to speak in the debate. It's very important that once again we approach this on a cross-party basis. I acknowledge the contribution made across the chamber to keep a focus on Missy Thuloma and the wider impact as best as it has had on our constituents. I begin my contribution by welcoming the Clydebank asbestos group to our Parliament, and I know, Presiding Officer, that you and all members here are very pleased that they are able to join us. In Clydebank Mwgai, we owe them a debt or gratitude for the work that they have done for those impacted by asbestos, and the compassionate support that they give to families and other loved ones at often very difficult times, as well as providing excellent and compassionate support, the determination for truth and justice is resolute and strong. I also welcome to the gallery members of the Clydebank group holidays project, who have also travelled through to support the debate. Action, Missy Thuloma, 2023, on the 7th of July seeks to raise awareness of Missy Thuloma. I congratulate Action, Missol and all the support groups up and down the country for the determined efforts to raise awareness of this disease. As part of the campaign, we've been asked to turn landmarks blue to raise awareness, and I am pleased to advise that our Clydebank district heating centre on the former John Brown's shipyard site will be lit up blue on the 7th of July, as well as the Bedmore's ramly sculpture in Darmure. Missy Thuloma is a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibres. It is a type of cancer that begins to grow in the lining of certain organs, most commonly it affects the lining of the lungs, and it can also affect the lining of the abdomen or the lining of the heart. It has a long latency period. We're followed by cancer, stating that it can take anywhere from 20 to 50 years from the first exposure to asbestos and a diagnosis of Missy Thuloma. It is an equitable disease, but some people can survive for many years after diagnosis. I welcome the recent developments that have been in treatment and research and commend the Scottish Missy Thuloma network, Missy Thuloma UK, Cancer Research campaigners and health professionals for all their work, and they can't underestimate its importance. The most appalling thing about this disease is that it's preventable. Cancer Research UK estimates that there are around 2,700 new cases in the UK every year. That's more than seven a day. The latest health and safety executive statistics show that the local authority area that covers Clydebank has a second highest male and fourth highest female death rate in the UK. Clydebank was once known as the Missy Thuloma capital of Europe because of high mortality rates. It's a horrible description that for us has a real person behind each number. Our industrial history is the main reason for this unwanted legacy of our town. John Brown Shipyard, the Singer's Machine factory, and Turner's asbestos cement factory are industries that I've often put the prioritisation of profit and production over the safety and welfare of workers. In their little book Little Work, Ronald Johnston and Arthur McIver illustrate the dreadful work conditions that were experienced by many in the shipbuilding industry. A lager that he interviewed gave a horrific account of his job. He opened the mat up and left enough so that he could stitch it up. He filled it with asbestos, folded his cloth and patted it all to try to make it the same. Sometimes it was hard stuff, so he got big lumps of wood and battered it. He worked in a fog making this up. Those conditions were appalling and were responsible for the murder of many people from our town. Unfortunately, there are also exposures to asbestos, causing Missy Thuloma that are not linked to our past industrial history. There have been emerging cases of younger people affected with one person being supported by the Clibank asbestos group after being diagnosed at just 30 years of age. Also, the health and safety executive reports some evidence of young teachers being diagnosed with Missy Thuloma. This question has continued wisdom of the health and safety executive advice that asbestos has been held in situ and the built environment provides the least risk to exposure. Instead, we need to see consideration given to a programme of phase removal from all public buildings, starting with schools, and calling the Scottish Government to work with COSLA and the health and safety executive to bring that to fruition. That is the best way to reduce exposure and further cases of Missy Thuloma. The support that we give to those impacted by Missy Thuloma also requires a social security system and legal compensation schemes that are there for people at their time of greatest need. I have listened to the Clibank asbestos group about the running down of DLP industrial injuries disabling benefit office at Phoenix House in Barrow. Although it is a reserved matter, I have raised it in this Parliament and colleagues have raised it in Westminster. The refusal to U-turn on this decision is very disappointing. The transfer of the benefit to Scotland allows us to devise a system that is more receptive to needs and one that looks at creating a modern scheme once the full and safe transfer of cases has taken place. I have already secured a meeting where the asbestos group gave clear views on that to the minister and I look forward to this dialogue continuing. I also welcome the contribution that Mark Griffin is making to this debate with the Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council. As a member of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I look forward to taking evidence and scrutinising the bill. In the area of compensation, the three-year time bar must end. Although the courts have the right to exercise discretion in those cases, the legal test is often failed. It cannot be right that this Parliament expected justice to be denied in this way. That is why I have raised this matter in Parliament with the Justice Minister and secured a commitment to hear from a delegation, including the Clibank asbestos group. I am hopeful that the outcome of the work by the Scottish Law Commission will make positive recommendations to resolve the difficulties in raising proceedings in asbestos-related cases. If those recommendations move us to a better place, I want to see them implemented within this Parliament term. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, this debate is important to my constituents and the many others that are impacted by emisifidlioma. We use it to remember those who have lost this horrible and tragically preventable disease, but we also use it to thank people like the Clibank asbestos group, researchers and charities who fight with resolute dedication for much better outcomes. We can thank them most effectively by acting where we can and by standing with them in the pursuit for truth and justice. We now move to the open debate. I call for Sanders Galhany to be followed by Paul Sweeney up to four minutes, Dr Galhany. I wish to draw members to a register of interest as a practicing NHS GP. In fact, as a junior doctor in FY1, I saw a lot of asbestos exposure long x-rays. I thank Murray McNair for bringing this motion to Parliament ahead of mesifidlioma day, which this year falls on 7 July. Mesifidlioma is a devastating disease that continues to afflict countless lives. Mesifidlioma is a rare and aggressive form of cancer that affects the lining of lungs, hearts or abdomen, primarily caused by exposure to asbestos. It is a disease that demands our attention, empathy and action. Mesifidlioma Day serves as a crucial reminder of the ongoing struggle faced by patients, their families and medical professionals in combating this merciless disease. It is my wish that we can shed light on its impact, foster understanding and advocate for better support systems and resources. First, awareness is the cornerstone of progress. The more we understand mesifidlioma, its causes, symptoms and effects, the better equipped we become to address it. By disseminating knowledge about the risks associated with asbestos exposure, we can prevent future cases and protect vulnerable individuals, including workers and industry that still use or handle asbestos. Educating the public, policy makers and employers about the dangers of asbestos and the importance of safety measures is crucial to prevent needless suffering. Second, empathy and support are essential in the fight against mesifidlioma. This disease not only affects the physical health of patients but also takes a toll on their mental and emotional wellbeing. By extending our compassion and understanding to those impacted by mesifidlioma, we can create a supportive environment where they can find solace, comfort and the strength to face challenges. Though we have local support groups, we also have online communities and counselling services and groups like we have here today in Parliament, and through these groups we can ensure that no-one faces this battle alone. Furthermore, research and innovation is vital as we want to be in pursuit of better treatments. Allocating resources to medical research institutes and universities enables scientists and medical professionals to make breakthroughs and understanding to disease and developing more effective therapies. By supporting and funding research initiatives, we can bring forward to those affected and accelerate progress towards better treatment options and improved patient outcomes. Finally, advocacy plays a vital role in shaping policies and regulations that protect individuals from asbestos exposure and support mesifidlioma patients. By raising our voices and supporting organisations dedicated to mesifidlioma advocacy, we can push for stricter safety regulations, improved compensation for affected individuals and increased funding for research and patient support programmes. In conclusion, we can make a tangible difference in the lives of those impacted by this relentless disease, and we should support all efforts to reduce mesifidlioma to nothing but a chapter in the history of human suffering. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this afternoon's debate. I thank the member for a Clydebank and will Guy for bringing this motion on mesifidlioma to the chamber. I would also like to commend and echo the comments of colleagues in commending the work of Clydebank asbestos group and action on asbestos for all they have done to support people in their families, dealing with diagnoses that were bestos related to conditions for some three decades. I know that my colleague the member for Dumbarton is a long-standing supporter of their work, and she was disappointed not to be able to contribute to this afternoon's debate. We are all certainly aware of the dangers of asbestos, but in previous years, prevalence was extremely high due to its affordability and durability. Indeed, its prevalence in the United Kingdom, and in Scotland in particular, is in direct proportion to the extent to which our country was the first in the world to industrialise and went through the most intensive period of industrialisation in world history. The industry was world leading in Scotland from the 1870s. Indeed, there were around 60 asbestos manufacturing companies in Scotland by around 1914, the most notable of which were in the Glasgow area, Turner and Newell in Dalmure, Cape and Springburn in Maronite in Glasgow as well. The fact that the UK Government was so late in banning this product is also a huge legacy that we are still dealing with today. Indeed, we are one of the last countries in the developed world to ban this product. Blue and brown asbestos banned in 1985, but full ban on asbestos products was only in 1999, so that is why even today we have relatively young people still suffering from these horrendous effects of this toxic product. Shipbuilding is one iconic example of an occupation that had very high levels of asbestos exposure, as it was used for fireproofing high heat equipment on ships such as steam turbines, incinerators and boilers. Further, it was also used throughout ship shellplating for insulation and to line pipes for heat resistance. Indeed, I remember as a young boy my dad coming in from Shifts at Yaros and the powder coming off of his overalls and his boiler suit as he would come in from work. That is why young people, even children today, can still be affected. It was not just the people working on the shop floor or on board the ships, it was the carrying at home that also caused terrible harms to family and friends in the household. Indeed, it was so ubiquitous across Scotland. Building contractors, housing contractors would use it, even asbestos fireproofing in school chemistry labs, using it to insulate boilers. It was everywhere, it still is everywhere and indeed it is worth noting in this country today that if 53 per cent Scotland still has the highest proportion of pre-1946 housing stock in Europe relative to 38 per cent in the UK as a whole and 22 per cent across the EU, so it is embedded across so much of our housing stock even to this day. It still is alive and present danger. I was at an event at the King's Theatre at the weekend, the National Theatre, we were doing a tribute to Billy Connolly and I distinctly remember him speaking at Jimmy Reid's funeral, talking about how it would be snowing asbestos on board the ships that he worked on at Alexander Stephen's shipyard in Lenthouse and that he described it as, you would come up for a cigarette and then go down for more fumes. It was one of the most appalling industrial environments to work in anywhere in the world shipbuilding. Although there's a lot of romance around it, having worked in the industry myself, although there's been great improvements, it certainly isn't a pleasant place to work in the winter months. That's simply added to the devastating exposure to industrial illness that we've seen in Scotland and the fact that there are still these difficulties in getting recognition and compensation, particularly around the time bar given the latency of the condition, is simply unacceptable. We must make urgent steps to recognise the distinct and particularly pernicious effects that Mesa The Leoma has in this country because of our industrial legacy and because of the length of time it takes for it to manifest itself. We must adapt our social security system accordingly. We must adapt our apparatus for industrial injury accordingly to recognise the particular prevalence of this condition in our society today. It's still very much with us, it's not a historic situation, and with that I will conclude my remarks. Thank you very much, Mr Sweeney. I now call Bill Kidd to be followed by Mark Griffin up to four minutes, Mr Kidd. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I'd like to thank Marie McNair for bringing today's important debate to Parliament. Last year, the member secured a debate on the same issue and spoke movingly and passionately about her experiences as part of the nursing team at St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, seeing, as she said, firsthand how those types of cancer took away so many too soon, and recalling the many heartbreaking conversations about the impact of mesothelioma. As the MSP for Clydebank, a town in which she was brought up, the member knows better than most and has described today again the devastating effect mesothelioma can have on individuals, families and whole communities, and I applaud her for her commitment and dedication to this issue. An issue that has affected so many in the Clydebank area and beyond in my Glasgow and Eastland constituency and further afield instead. As we've heard, mesothelioma is particularly aggressive, painful and debilitating cancer, where the average life expectancy after diagnosis is between 12 and 21 months, often associated with exposure to asbestos, in fact very much so. Its dangers were first discovered as early as 1906, however it wasn't until the 50s and 60s that the link between asbestos, lung disease, cancer, mesothelioma and other diseases became established, leading, as has been said, to its total ban in the UK in 1999. Sadly, given the time between exposure and diagnosis, despite the ban on asbestos, mesothelioma continues to blight thousands of lives every year. Focus of those at risk has also shifted with the realisation that many public buildings and particular schools, due to the use of asbestos in the building process, could pose a threat to those working there, especially if disturbed as they undergo refurbishment, repair work or demolition. Those are very real risks. The health and safety executive estimates that over 1 million tradespeople are still being exposed to asbestos every year. If we think about the fact that previous exposure to asbestos is still causing more than 5,000 deaths a year around 20 a week, we can see the continuing scale of the issue and the huge potential for future tragedy. That is why the work of groups such as Action on Asbestos, Clydebank Action on Asbestos Group and others is so important in ensuring that we do not lose sight of the challenges that we face or think of mesothelioma as a product of past industry in the past year. To applaud the work of those groups that have done over 30 years and the support and focus that they continue to provide, Action on Mesothelioma is very relevant to my constituency of Glasgow Annesland, too, with a proud history of shipbuilding and heavy engineering. It has suffered from the ravages of mesothelioma and, once again, the help and support of organisations such as Clydebank asbestos group and Action on Asbestos has been invaluable. The Scottish Government's continuing commitment to acknowledging and tackling this issue should also be commended. The establishment of the Scottish Mesothelioma Network in 2019 aims to improve outcomes for patients by taking a collaborative approach across Scotland and across various professions, meaning that all patients in Scotland could access the very best expertise and the care that they deserve, no matter what health board area they happen to live in. At this debate last year, we learned that the network had recently created the first set of national quality performance indicators, but those QPISs were not at that time all being met. Given that a year has passed, I hope that the minister will take the opportunity to provide an update on the work of the network and indeed progress towards meeting its target. Today's debate is relevant to the past, to now and also, sadly, to the future. As we learn of the potential harmful effects of new innovative materials, as best as once was, we need to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that they never happen again. For that to happen, we need to have more control of the development, licensing and distribution of new products. We need to have more control over seeing their use, namely through health and safety legislation. I urge the Government to call for these powers and, for all of us, to support those calls. I also want to congratulate Maria McNeill for bringing this timely debate to the chamber ahead of action on Mesa Salioma Day 2003 next week. I also thank her for her kind words on my work on my private members bill. I look forward to working with Maria McNeill and other members of the Social Security and Social Justice Committee as it makes its way through the parliamentary process. With around 200 new cases a year in Scotland, asbestos-related cancer and Mesa Salioma and the risks from asbestos have clearly not gone away. It is a painful, incurable and terminal disease, and like many other speakers in the chamber today, I want to pay tribute to the long-standing on-going work of Clydebank Asbestos Group for the information and support that they continue to provide to people with asbestos-related conditions. I also want to pay tribute to action on asbestos and asbestos action. Collectively, those organisations have provided decades of critical support, helping people across Scotland to suffer what is predominantly a workplace disease. Both action on asbestos and asbestos action have told me that their case load, the people who are coming to them to seek support for asbestos-related cancer, is now increasingly female. Nurses and care workers, hospital staff who have worked care for sick and dying friends and relatives for decades in buildings ridden with asbestos. Teachers who have worked in schools with asbestos are also increasingly suffering, and because the disease can take up to 20 years to develop long after they leave their work, most treatments simply rely on palliative care. The GEM study found in 2020 that the high-risk occupations for asbestos exposure differed entirely for men and women, but so, too, did the experiences of explanations and support provided at the time of their diagnosis. The gender roles also influenced how they coped with a diagnosis of mesothelioma. Those are the very real gender differences for which our industrial injuries system has not taken account at all. We can see the disparity in the applications for industrial injuries and disabled benefit, and that is something that must be addressed urgently, because the current benefit is highly gendered against women. For example, asbestos-related avarian cancer, which is the most common gynaecological cancer in the UK, is missing from the scheme and including men includes only a fifth of the cancers that European schemes recognise. I want to put on record my thanks to the charities that I mentioned earlier who are supporting those affected by asbestos for their support for my Scottish employment injuries advisory council bill. I think that having a new powerful independent council with workers at the heart of that new Scottish benefit that can conduct research into the extent of mesothelioma and asbestos-related cancer in modern workplaces is absolutely urgent, but so, too, is the need to have that council, which has a driving mission at the heart of its purpose to close the gender gap in that benefit. Because asbestos is still found in many older buildings, it continues to put the communities and workforces in every one of our constituency and regions at risk, which is exactly why we must continue to recognise it in our policy decisions. There are homes right across the country that will need to retrofit for net zero that still have asbestos. They have at their loft their floor tiles their insulation. It is in the schools that need to be renovated or rebuilt. It is in the NHS, a state of hospitals which again will need to be rebuilt or maintained. Every day places that we live, work or study or just go for treatment, we can still be exposed to asbestos today. Although asbestos was completely banned in 1999, that exposure risk remains. There are real policy questions about managing and removing asbestos that we must tackle, and I hope that we can heed those calls and deliver the action required. Thank you very much, Mr Griffin. I now call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Richard Leonard up to four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First, I would like to refer members to my register of interests as a lifetime honour member of action on asbestos. I want to congratulate Marie McNair for securing this important members' debate, and as Marie McNair highlighted, asbestos related conditions in this case, Mr Thuleomer is still highly prevalent in society today. Mr Thuleomer is not only an awful condition which has no cure, but it also does not, excuse me, is not only a condition based on people solely working in our past traditional industries. As we have heard in this chamber, and this chamber certainly knows this because it has been spoken about many times before, asbestos is a product that was used in many buildings and constructions. As such, it will exist in buildings in the country today, as we have already heard regarding schools. With that, I actually want to echo Marie McNair's call regarding the programme going forward for public buildings. Crucially, however, if asbestos is not interfered with, it is considered to not pose a threat to the public, but I certainly agree with Marie McNair's call. I genuinely will never understand why asbestos was still used in buildings and constructions when it was well known for decades that it was a dangerous product. I also will never understand why there was such a lacyfair attitude from Governments with regards to health and safety in society when it came to this particular product. As someone who has campaigned over many years to improve the care and support given to people who have been affected by asbestos related to diseases, I recognise the importance of making days such as Action Musically on My Day to remind us that there is still a lot more to be done in this area. I coincidentally welcome the recent commitment from the Scottish Law Commission that it will as part of its 11th programme of law reform explore issues surrounding the current law of limitation where plural plaques are concerned. I had written to the SLC but also met with Lady Payton in this particular regard. I did this because I responded to the SLC's discussion paper on damages for personal injury published in February 2022 following correspondence from a constituent about this particular issue. For context, the way that the law currently stands, people who have been negligently exposed to asbestos have three years from the date of becoming aware of the fact that they have developed plural plaques to raise proceedings for damages. Given that plural plaques are an asymptomatic condition, I agreed with the SLC's position in the discussion paper that it is unlikely that a person diagnosed with this condition could know that they have a right of action as per the damages asbestos-related conditions at Scotland Act passed in 2009 in this parliament. Further, it is highly unlikely that they would then know that if they do not exercise that right within three years, it should develop a serious and fatal symptomatic condition, such as musically on my later in life, they would not have any remedy because of the failure to act. When my constituent got in contact to explain how this legislation actually prohibited their relative from making a claim for damages when they were later diagnosed with mesothelioma, as they were not aware of the three-year time bar, I knew that I had to raise this particular issue with the SLC who I knew were looking at similar issues. I am glad that the SLC has therefore confirmed that this will be looked at because I believe that it is grossly unfair to expect people diagnosed with plural plaques to know that they only have a short time frame to raise proceedings given not everyone goes on to develop a more serious health condition. Whilst it is known that fewer people are now being diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases, thanks to improvements in health and safety for workers, but as ways of working and industries change, there will no doubt be new industrial diseases that arise in the future. That is why law reform this area remains important. If we are to further improve working conditions for everyone across Scotland, irrespective of the job that they do, and with that, Presiding Officer, once again, I want to thank Marie McNair for securing this hugely important debate on action musically on my day. I thank Marie McNair for tabling this motion in Parliament. It comes at a time when working people are continuing to contend with a deregulated labour market, the dilution of labour law and an onslaught on their trade unions. I raise this because a strong and vibrant trade union movement is a precondition of a free and democratic society. It is also a prerequisite for justice for the victims of occupational diseases like mesothelioma. For many years now, there have been domestic laws and international bans on exposure to asbestos in the workplace, but at the same time, there have been precious few convictions, even when we know that fatal exposure to these deadly fibres is still prevalent. That is why we should restore the civil liability for breach of health and safety regulations. It is why we should significantly increase the number of inspections carried out by HSE and local government inspectors. It is why we should bolster trade union rights as part of a wider transformative shift in power in favour of workers' democracy and equality. Today, as well as the trade union movement, we pay tribute to organisations like Action on Asbestos and the widely respected Clydebank Asbestos Group. Both provide not just practical help, not simply just monetary advice but compassion and emotional support, so they offer mutual aid, collective solidarity but they also campaign for justice and truth as well. Friday 7 July is a time of remembrance. On that day, I will shed a tear for my dear old comrade, Alex Falkiner. In my life, I have grieved and said it in early farewell to too many workers who, in this crucible of the industrial revolution, from the dockyards and the shipyards to the factories and the construction sites have paid with their lives, their families robbed of treasured years together. It is for them that we keep fighting and it is because of them that we shall never give up. Today, we also think of those fearless campaigners, like Bob Dickie, Joan Baird and Tommy Gorman, who gave evidence to the Public Petitions Committee of this Parliament on the need for urgent action on mesothelioma, to the greatly missed Frank Maguire and those who made the unanswerable case to this Parliament for legal reform, to MSPs like Bill Butler, Desmond Nulty, whose pioneering work led to the enactment of legislation which made the lives of the people we are here to serve a little better. The Scottish Parliament does have a proud record on this question and it is right that we hold this debate again this year, but we need to do more than simply debate it. We need action, more investment in health and care, in new research and in new treatments for a start, but we also need action now to tackle some of the outstanding legal matters too. A year ago, I called on the government to reform the so-called single action rule. Under this rule, a failure to lodge a claim for plural plaques within a three-year time limit prevents any subsequent claim for a more serious condition like mesothelioma being pursued, even though both were caused by the same negligence by the same employer. The Scottish Law Commission published a comprehensive and compelling case for reform back in February 2022. The consultation closed in mid-June 2022, but over a year later the Scottish Government still has not responded, not uttered a single word, never mind profed a remedy, so I'm bound to finish by warning that such inaction, such inertia, such indifference is not good enough, not good enough for a government, not good enough for this Parliament and certainly not good enough for all of those working-class families denied justice. So this afternoon, a year on, I hope that those families will finally get an answer from this Government. They are entitled to nothing less, they deserve the truth, they deserve answers and they deserve justice. Thank you Mr Leonard, I now invite, if I could perhaps ask those in the public gallery, I know again emotions run high on an issue like this, but I would ask you to refrain from participating, that includes applauding. I now invite the Minister Jenny Minto to respond to the debate around seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I too would like to pass my thanks on to Mary McNair for raising this subject in the chamber again, this really important subject again. And also her comment on the importance of cross-party work. I think that that's incredibly important too and I note what both Richard Leonard and Stuart McMillan have said. I'm also pleased to say that the Scottish Government buildings will be lit blue on the 7th of July to recognise the importance of this day and the idea of it being a moment to remember as well, I think, is incredibly important. So I welcome the opportunity to close today's debate on Mesotholomeoma and I too would like to welcome the Clive Bank asbestos group to the parliament as well. The Scottish Government is fully aware of the distress and impact this disease can have on individuals and their families. This is especially true for this cancer due to its latency, as many members have pointed out, and how widespread asbestos exposure was in the past without the knowledge of its long-term impacts. This can be particularly distressing due to the limitation of treatment options. However, research into the condition continues and there is hope that progress will be made in the coming years. If I may, I first heard about Mesotholomeoma when my husband was making a documentary for Frontline Scotland in 2000 and that really brought home to me the impact that it had on so many communities across Scotland. I would also like to reference Paul Sweeney's comments in setting the historical context, but also the fact that it rolls forward into the here and now as well. I think that that is very important to recognise.  My next meeting is with the women's champion for women's health, so I will drop a pebble into her mind about this as well, but women's health care and the gender disparities that we have to be very aware of, and I believe that the Scottish Government is. I would like to give special thanks to those people working across the NHS, as well as those who are working in social care and our third sector partners. I have already thanked them, but I would like to thank them again, Clydebank, a specialist group for their continuing work. Their support for not only an individual's physical needs but emotional and mental wellbeing is immensely important and one that we could not do without in the health sector. The work of our various partners in the community is absolutely crucial in supporting those affected. Bill Kidd asked about the Scottish Mesothlemia network, and it continues to be a valuable resource across Scotland ensuring best practice. Information and access to clinical trials is shared across the country. It has helped to ensure access to trials for people all across Scotland, which is so important where treatment options are otherwise so limited. The network also allows access to clinical nurse specialists who are there to support patients and their families. Patients also have access to specialist clinicians who are able to give the dedicated and expert treatment in care that they need and deserve. I am sure that members will be aware that the Scottish Government recently published our 10-year cancer strategy alongside a three-year cancer action plan. Over the next 10 years, our strategic aim is to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible care. The strategy and plan take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care. Our overall vision is that more cancers are prevented. Our compassionate and consistent cancer services provide excellent treatment and support throughout the cancer journey and improve outcomes and survival for people with cancer. For those individuals who are facing a mesothemiuma diagnosis today, we are able to support them as best possible throughout their care. We are continuing to fund our single point-of-contact initiative, which will help cancer patients, including those with mesothemiumaia. I am sorry to discuss any questions or anxieties related to their clinical care with a dedicated individual and will help them to self-manage some aspects of their condition and progress through their cancer journey. As we have heard today, up to 9 out of 10 people with the disease are directly linked to exposure to asbestos. I recognise the comments that Paul Sweeney was making about schools. I can remember in my science lab having an asbestos square for our Bunsen burner to sit on, and I see Richard Leonard nodding his head as well. Richard Leonard nodding his head as well. It has gone into many people's consciousness. It was interesting that the reference made in the debate to the law commission's project on damages for personal injury, which, under the current timetable, is due to report by mid 2024. Can the minister do anything at all to work with her colleagues across Government to expedite that, examine with the law commission a way to extra resource to be provided to analyse the responses to the consultation and try to speed up the policy consideration? I think getting enhanced legislation is really important. I thank Paul Sweeney for that intervention, and I am happy to discuss that with colleagues. The use of asbestos in the UK has, of course, been banned since 1999, where existing asbestos remains and there are licences required to work with it, and the use of strict control measures, including personal protective equipment such as respirators. As well as seeking to prevent exposure to asbestos and to provide appropriate medical care for those who have been affected by it, we also have worked hard to ensure appropriate rights to compensation. The Scottish Government in this Parliament has a strong record of supporting those who have been negligently exposed to asbestos. Significant changes regarding the law and damages for personal injuries has been made, including the most recently damages Scotland Act 2011. Although those preventative policies are welcome, there is the reality that many more individuals will continue to present with this disease due to often long periods before symptoms present. In conjunction with this, it can unfortunately be very difficult to treat. Nearly all treatment is aimed at controlling the disease for as long as possible in keeping symptoms under control. Doctors and researchers are working to improve treatment all the time. The Scottish Government encourages clinicians to ensure that, as many patients as possible are included in relevant and appropriate clinical trials. There is significant evidence that outcomes are improved for those patients treated in environments where research is the norm or for those patients who are involved in cancer trials. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all members for their contributions in today's debate. It has reinforced the commitment that everyone here has to make a difference—sorry, it has reinforced the commitment that everyone here has to making a difference to those with musaflameoma and their families. Progress has been made in cancer diagnosis and treatment, but we know that there is much more work than can be done, and I hope that we can work together to improve that.


Amazon finally split. Remember everybody for years and years and years. Hey, what is Amazon splitting? What is Amazon splitting? They finally got the news last night. Amazon splitting 20 Welcome to Access to Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process and own your future. Hey guys, good evening everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Access to Trader.com nightly wrap up show. I apologize. There was no video yesterday. My son called me yesterday after the close said his bus, his bus that takes him back home, got into a fender bender with another car. Luckily, nobody was injured. The car, not so much. So basically, there was supposed to be another bus that came and never came. So I had to drive 45 minutes one way, 45 minutes back by the time I got home was like 6 30. And my daughter had basketball practice at 7 25. So I apologize. There was no video yesterday, but a crazy, crazy 24 hours. If you guys remember going back to a day week Thursday to Tuesday, right? If you guys remember, we were up 500 points had that really good aggressive day to the downside. And then around 12 o'clock, the market reverse was up like 5 600 points. And then into the close, there was a sell off from Dow up 600 to be down down 180. The NASDAQ went red. So you talk about 800 points off the highs in the last hour. And the next day, which was yesterday, they gapped up 600 points, basically erasing the previous 12 hours highs or 12 hours lows, running back up. And basically, the market was absolutely all over the place. And when the tape gets all over the place, guess what, charts get absolutely skewed. And, you know, the one recourse you had yesterday was either chase stocks into supply, which basically most names were going into supply, tried to short them off a supply, try to scalp some things or kind of stay away from yesterday's activity. And as great as it looked on paper yesterday, I found very, very little value yesterday. You know, there's a couple of scalps here and there. But again, I'm not big into buying stocks into daily supply while we're underneath the 200 day moving average on the cues. And yada, yada, yada, we came into today. And you know, if you looked at last night's research, there was very few things that you really wanted to buy, right? Oil names continue today. They, you know, modest decline, basically about 2%, which was absolutely nothing considering the big rise in oil in the last couple of weeks. We had the CPI today that really didn't move the needle, kind of met expectations and yada, yada, yada, when you look at the day's activity, you know, we gave back some money. Again, it's very, very tough to even scratch that statement. It's very, very tough to turn around and say, Hey, cues just gave back a little bit from yesterday's game. I mean, look, what game? I mean, look, look where we were two months ago and look what we are now. It's like losing $100,000 and turning around and say, Yo, I just made two grand. Yes. Right. So again, we're still way deep deep underneath supply. And ironically today, and yesterday, you know, we ran up at 1.7 800 points in the Dow, about almost 500 on the NASDAQ. The ironic part about today's session, there was a lot more value today than it was yesterday. And again, it's not about the scoreboard. It's not about being right or being wrong. It's whatever your process is, you're trading, you know, on that value, whether it's the long side to the short side. And when you look at most charts, and again, even today, right, when you look at most names, you're going to get a lot more value to the downside. Because again, at the overall spectrum of things, we're still underneath the 200 day moving average. And as we know, and as we've been saying for years and years and years, no matter how bad a market is, you're still going to get aggressive moves up. And that's again, that's what we're seeing consistently, right? Not on the normal, but consistency. Here was, you know, three day rally stuff into supply, two day rally stuff into supply, a four day rally stuff into supply. We had another rally yesterday, today, lower highs, lower lows and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, right? Here we are again. The challenging part about what we're seeing now, both on the long and on the short side, again, on the long side, you're just not getting a lot of room to get an expanded move. Can you get us trade here and there? Of course, right? It's the market. The market moves up, the market moves down. And ironically, today, the bulls got kind of a stick save today. We had a, you know, pretty aggressive two o'clock reversal back to the upside and kind of destroyed a lot of really good value for tomorrow. But again, that's what the market is. And this is not a market you can sit there and trade 10, 15, 20 stocks. It's just not there. It's like you're trying to get one or two or three pretty good value plays in the direction where the futures are pushing, the direction where the sentiment is. And you're hoping those stocks confirm because again, there's a lot of days and if you do your research kind of going into tomorrow, you're not going to get a lot of value. You just not. I mean, look at, you know, go through the charts and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, are there plays you can take advantage? I mean, look at GameStop, right? Here's the name I'm watching for the next couple of days. It had a big gap down the last three, four days and it's just kind of flagging here. You know, eventually GameStop starts building below this channel. Of course, this thing is a short, right?  But the point is, look at this channel here. This is something I'm interesting and usually I wouldn't trade GameStop because there's so many other names I'd rather do anything. But hey, I'm interested in this channel because the longer it builds and continues to put in lower highs on the five day moving average, eventually it's going to snap this area here. And eventually, you know, when you snap that area, you could go to the next measured potential of 86 bucks. So this definitely interests me. A name like UPST, you know, definitely interests me. I mean, look at that. Again, it's the same thing as GameStop. It's just building a kind of a nice little base here. It held the range several times on the bottom channel here. And if that bottom channel snaps, maybe this thing could get hit as well. Look at the upside names. Again, here's my point about you have to be a little bit more creative. This is not the market that you want. It's the market that you have on the upside. Yeah, a name like PSTG looks really good. This is any beta name. Of course, yeah, I take a definitely shot at it. Watch this thing. Keep an eye on this top of this channel here. If PSTG confirms, maybe you get a nice upside push. And a name like VRTX that we've had from this channel break and this channel break, it's setting up fairly well, a biotech name. This is a name that you have to be super patient with. But again, look at the channel here, right? Again, beggars can't be choosers. Look at the channel. If it starts building above this channel, maybe this thing wakes up as well.    What is Amazon splitting? They finally got the news last night, Amazon splitting 20 for one. They took a page out of Google. They're buying back $10 billion worth of stock. But look what happened today, right? And again, we had a pivot today in Amazon off that initial 29-20 that popped up 20 points very quickly, but it popped right into daily supply. And again, is this looking like a chart that you have to be long? That's my point. The value is very, very difficult on the upside unless you have a five, 10, 20-year horizon. And by the way, you still have to get above the five, the 50, and the 200-day moving average for any expanded measure potential in the name. And if they did take the playbook from Google, and I don't know why they would, right? Look at what Google did from their split, right? Here's the announcement split. It went from 30-30 all the way to 2,500. So again, the bears are still definitely in control. It doesn't make a difference if you have one or two days of spikes, this, that, the other thing. You could clearly see, again, if you don't have eyes and you refuse to kind of acknowledge what's going on, you could start making excuses. Well, the market is oversold. Yeah, I mean, I've been in bear markets for two, three years. Again, hopefully this won't last that long. It's only been a couple of months or so. But it's out there, right? History has proven us. It's been out there. It continues to be out there. And there's definitely a possibility that we could be in this thing longer that anybody wants or anybody cares for. Again, if you look at the headlines, you have Ukraine and Russia, the idea yesterday because of that rally was, hey, maybe they're finally going to get some sort of peace, you know, peace, something done, right? Nothing really happened yesterday. So we started, you know, kind of moving back down. Nasdaq today only down 1% compared to yesterday's mode. But the point is, again, they couldn't capitalize on yesterday's action. And maybe, you know, listen, maybe they rally tomorrow, maybe they don't. But we definitely have to be prepared from both sides. That's the point. You don't have to act, right? You don't have to be a participant on that side. But the point is, you have to be prepared. After the close, you had Rivian come out with earnings, you know, not great, right? You know, not great. Moving down, you have Oracle came out after the close, you know, not great, not bad. It's kind of flat after the close. I think it was also, it also came out of the close. I don't remember. Anyway, the point is going into tomorrow, it's Friday. Guys, remember, look for value, right? That's the name of the game, whether it's one stock, two stocks, whatever it is, it's not how many you trade, it's how many you trade properly. So let's talk about today's pivots. Oxy really didn't do a lot. Again, oil got pulled. Not a big move at all.  Oxy only ran up like 60 cents or so. You can see it here.  But overall, these oil names continue to be overall pretty healthy. And again, here's the value to the downside. Gilead, not a big mover yet. The most important part is it did break a macro daily channel. 58, 20, 58, if it builds below, can flush. Here is Gilead. Went down about a buck. Nothing crazy. But again, watch the bottom channel here for confirms. It goes lower. Clorox got hit, right? Clorox finally took out that earnings low. 137, if it builds below, can flush more. Here was Clorox. Again, this is my point. Look at the names we're talking about, right? We're not talking about Facebook. We're not talking about Apple. Those stocks is destroyed and they continue to get, you know, to kind of get hit and they rally, get hit. But the value, you know, is really not there in a lot of names. So, Clorox took out 37, traded all the way down to 31. Really, really nice move there. Tesla got hit. Really good move. Really good move. Definitely the move of the day. 830, 829, if it builds below, can flush. You know, stock went all the way down to 810. I thought it was going to get down to 806. You can see why I said 806. It got a nice kick save here at the last hour and a half and now it's back to the middle of the channel. But really nice move. Again, not every single thing needs to be a four or five-day potential. But you know, really nice move there. Obviously, Boeing never got above 183. You know, 22s. Takes them off. 806 next stop. Again, Tesla went all the way down to the 810 level. Again, there's obviously a big area coming up if we get to those levels. But again, going into tomorrow, you have a lot of stocks in the middle of the ranges. It's not going to be the most exciting day. If you are religious, pray to the market gods today for some beta name that gets upgraded. It gets downgraded. Maybe we can, you can find some value. Amazon, you know, right? I mean, you know, maybe we'll watch the top of the channel here. Maybe it's a delayed reaction. Right? Maybe we'll watch the top of the channel here where it got rejected twice. Maybe it wakes up for a second day tomorrow. But again, don't put a lot of emphasis into the trading day tomorrow because again, everything's in the middle of their charts. And the most important part is we need a clear sign to see what happens next. Guys, have a great night.  I will see you tomorrow. And for everybody else, I will see you on the weekend video. God bless. Take care.