brandZ | BP

Company: BP PLC

Brand value: US$11,367 million

Headquarter city: London

Industry: Oil & Gas

Year formed: 1908

BP is an oil and gas producer best known to UK consumers for its network of over 1,200 filling stations around the country. Previously known as British Petroleum and with its origins in the Burmah Oil Company launched in 1908, the company rebranded as simply BP in 2001 to underline the fact the business was far more than petroleum. BP describes its business as moving energy around the globe; it finds and produces oil and gas, and manufactures and markets fuels and raw materials used in everyday products. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill was hugely damaging for the company, costing it many millions of dollars in fines and leading the brand to keep a low public profile for many years. In 2016, however, BP made a return to TV advertising in the UK for the first time since the spill, using an animated ball of light, a friendly character called “Orby”, to help differentiate BP from others in the category and help consumers understand the benefits of ACTIVE technology in its new “dirt-busting” BP Ultimate fuel. BP operates 18,000 retail sites in 72 countries, its largest division being BP America, in the US. BP is listed on the London Stock Exchange.