I saw a new eBay new commercial during Lost this evening on ABC. It had a very powerful emotional hook. It's been a while since I have seen a commercial and at the end said "Wow!"

Update: A quick feedster search finds this blog entry perhaps from the agency that created the spot..

The ad is titled 'Toy Boat' and is part of eBay's The Power of All of Us campaign. There are a total of four commercials listed as part of the campaign. The 'Toy Boat' video is not online yet though.

I will try to do my best to recap...

Cape Cod 1972: A boy is at the beach with a toy boat. His mother calls him, as he runs off screen a wave comes and takes his boat away. The boat drifts off. Soon the boat is pitching in a storm and sinks. We see the boat slowly sink to the bottom.

Cut to a fishing boat as it pulls in it's catch. As the fish dump onto the deck a toy boat falls out. A Japanese fisherman picks up the toy and looks it over.

Now we see a computer screen showing an eBay auction with the toy boat. A middle-aged man looks in astonishment at the screen. He turns to look over his sholder. On the shelf is an old photo of a young boy holding the boat at the beach. Voice-over "What is nothing was ever forgotten? What is nothing was ever lost?"

Quite the emotional hook.

In the moment that man looks at the auction and turns around, you feel as if a long lost thing from your past has finally been returned. We all probably have something that we lost as a child that would mean the world to us now.