AT&T television advertisement with a negative reference to the Cayman Islands

(CNS): Financial Services Minister Tara Rivers has scored her first win in the campaign she announced late last year to go after Hollywood for misusing and abusing the image of the Cayman Islands in books films, TV shows, videos and commercials. As part of the AT&T’s phone service campaign, ‘Just OK is not OK’, one of the commercials took a stereotypical swipe at Cayman over tax dodging. But a letter from the Cayman Islands Government has led to AT&T agreeing to change the advert.

After learning that the ministry had contacted AT&T’s legal team, CNS contacted the giant telecom company and a spokesperson confirmed it had made a decision to redo the commercial.

“This ad was intended to be humorous and to remind people that we have America’s best wireless network according to America’s biggest test. We are changing the ad,” the AT&T spokesperson stated.

Following the positive response to CNS from AT&T, the ministry said they had not yet received the formal response but it was encouraging to hear that it intended to change the advert.

“Whilst we understand the advertisement was intended to be humorous, it is not acceptable to inaccurately represent the Cayman Islands and its financial services industry,” the financial services ministry stated. “The Cayman Islands is one of the world’s leading providers of financial services. These services are provided in accordance with international financial standards and the OECD rankings place the Cayman Islands on par with other countries such as Canada and England for transparency and tax information sharing. Any insinuation to the contrary is wrong and inaccurate.”

During the budget debate in the LA in November, Rivers said she planned to meet movie makers, script writers and others in the business of creating films and TV shows that still paint this jurisdiction in a negative light in an effort to enlighten them on the real Cayman.

See below the ad that will now be changed: