Rochester Lupus PSAs

The Rochester lupus PSAs were two public service announcements made by Saatchi & Saatchi for the Lupus Foundation of America in 1997. The search centered around one of the commercials, called "Doll." On August 8, 2021, the "Doll" commercial was found by Automaton, and it was subsequently revealed that there was a second, unremembered commercial called "Box" as well.

Plot

Doll

The commercial features a woman swinging around an empty, warehouse-style room as melancholy music plays in the background. Suddenly, a cracked baby doll appears, swinging around in the same fashion, as the camera starts going in and out of focus and the distorted crying of a baby is heard. The camera shot cuts repeatedly from the woman to the baby doll as a female narrator says "Why don't we believe the pain of lupus is real? Maybe because most of its victims are women." At the end of the commercial, a phone number appears on screen — 1-888-38-LUPUS — followed by the slogan "STOP THE SICKNESS."

Box

A different woman is seen in a similar room. She is trapped inside a glass box. She looks around the room repeatedly and screams, but cannot be heard. Another version of her appears outside the box, looking inside of it but saying nothing. The same narrator from the "Doll" commercial says "Nobody hears it. Nobody sees it. Nobody stops the pain of lupus. Why is that? Maybe because most of its victims are women." The same information then appears on-screen.

Airings

The "Doll" commercial was known to have aired in the late 1990s in the Rochester, New York area. Strangely, it allegedly often aired on early Saturday mornings during children's shows like "Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures" and "Bananas in Pajamas" on over-the-air stations in Rochester. It has even been claimed that it aired every Saturday morning for several months at one time.

The Search

On November 11, 2018, Reddit user u/Necrosynthetic made a post to r/Lost_Films recalling the "Doll" PSA. The post was found in June 2021 after a comment was made on a separate post about the Que Sera Sera commercial. The commenter believed that the PSA featured the song "Que Sera Sera" in it.

With two separate recollections of the commercial, a channel focusing on the search for it was made in the Lost Commercials Foundation Discord server on June 19, 2021. Few leads were found during the search; it was believed that the PSA may have been made by the Lupus Foundation Genesee Valley Chapter.

On August 8, 2021, while searching on YouTube for the PSA, Automaton found an upload of it by Sherry Hilliard, an actress who played the woman in the commercial. The PSA was directed by Floria Sigismondi, known for directing music videos from stars like Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, The White Stripes, and Marilyn Manson, among others. It was edited by Barry Farrell. Upon discovering Farrell's LinkedIn profile, searchers learned that he had also edited a second lupus PSA called "Box," for which only a photo was available. "Box" was quickly found, though, on the website of makeup designer Julie Bégin.