Omelet advertising sued for whistleblower retaliation against employee

According to NBC Los Angeles, ACD Tiffani Harcrow is suing Omelet, "alleging she was wrongfully fired in May for expressing concerns about the honesty of a Princess Cruises assignment that she believed minimized the health threat from the Coronavirus."

Omelet is AOR for Princess Cruises, just one of many cruise ship brands who have come under scrutiny for their handling (or mishandling) of the situation.

On March 6th,  Princess Cruises Grand Princess ship confined passengers to their rooms under quarantine while docked off the coast of California.  On June 8th, the beleaguered company faced two more lawsuits alleging they knew of coronavirus exposure before ships went to sea, and did not take enough measures to ensure the safety of their guests on two different incidents including the Grand Princess cruise noted above.

Princess is not a defendant in Ms Harcrow's case, which came about when Omelet insisted she and the rest of the team come up with a "...materially false, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaign" to misleading consumers into believing that it would be safe to travel by June 30th.

According to the suit, she got the brief on April 22nd. Because Harcrow and the rest of her team knew that congress was investigating culpability among the cruise line industry, they rightly sounded the alarm on what appears to be misleading and unethical behaviour on Omelet's part.

According to the suit: 

The next day, Harcrow was derided by two Omelet managers for objecting to the Princess Cruises campaign and one of them said, "If you refuse this Princess brief, you will not be resourced on any more projects at Omelet," the suit states.
Harcrow, who was not assigned any other active projects and never given an explanation, was fired May 6, the suit states. All of Harcrow's responsibilities were transferred to employees who did not object to Omelet's "dangerous, misleading and unlawful marketing campaigns," the suit states.

If that last sentence sounds a bit like throwing your co-workers under the bus, the suit also states that the company never investigated Harcrow's retaliation claims. It's hard to blame her. 

What is truly saddening is that Princess gets off scot-free, since presumably they would have had to sign-off on the brief. 

No amount of advertising would have helped Princess, as according to the CDC, a no-sail order will still be in effect until July 24th. With the current spikes in the virus due to more testing, it's a safe bet the order will be extended.