In 2010, the year Lab42 was founded, one of the biggest events was BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.  This explosion resulted in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, releasing 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days, impacting 1,300 miles of shoreline along five states. 

Based on a study conducted by Lab42 in June of that year to understand how consumers felt and reacted to this disaster, we found out BP would face a backlash from consumers.  Our data showed that about 25% of US consumers would boycott BP as a result of this spill.  In fact, the impact on BP may have been even greater: according to Experian Simmons DataStream, BP experienced a relative loss of 38% of their client base between April 26 and June 28, 2010.