They were sitting on a huge pile of data and none of it had given them the answer. So we recommended something radically different. A salon with 16 women who’d used emergency contraception in the past few weeks. 8 members of the senior Perrigo team, including men, flown in from the US and Europe. And 3 hours to talk.

It was a glorious evening – for our clients and for the women involved, who found it hugely cathartic to talk about this somewhat taboo topic with others who’d experienced the same thing. And the Perrigo team walked away having experienced a series of real epiphanies into the attitudes and behaviours of the women they were trying to connect with that no data stack could ever have provided. This fed directly into at least 8 exciting new initiatives which all proved very successful.

So – AQR Excellence Award safely in the bag, Acacia headed into 2026. And we’re delighted to say that this summer, we scooped a few more awards for this wonderful piece of work. We won the AURA Insight Impact Award in July, and two ESOMAR awards earlier this month – Qualitative Excellence (Gold) and Research Impact (Silver).

We’ve also recently been shortlisted as a finalist for Quirks Awards in November. Can we add to our stash? Watch this space to find out…