Trump Border Ad Generates Most Intense Emotional Reaction of US Election so Far

An ad from Donald Trump’s campaign team criticising Presidential rival Kamala Harris for her immigration policies and her approach to the southern border is the most emotionally engaging ad of the 2024 US Presidential Election so far, according to new research from global creative effectiveness platform DAIVID.

DAIVID, which helps advertisers improve the effectiveness of their content at scale, used its advanced content testing technology to measure the emotional responses of US voters to ads created in support of the two candidates across YouTube, TikTok, X, and Instagram.

The study found that “I Don’t Understand”, posted on the Donald J Trump YouTube channel in July, generated the most intense emotional feelings of any ad posted by either of the two presidential campaigns so far. 

The ad, which uses a clip of Harris answering a question about her immigration policies to warn about the threat of drugs, crime, and terrorism spilling into the country from the southern border, topped the chart after half of the people watching (49.75%) had an intense emotional reaction to the content. 

This included the most intense feelings of anger (6x higher than US ad norm), anxiety (3x higher), fear (4X higher) and sadness (5X higher) of any ad in the study.

That put it ahead of a video, posted on the KamalaHQ TikTok channel, showing clips of Trump’s VP pick JD Vance previously criticising his running mate in a series of interviews, in second spot. The video, called "Did Vance Say That?” generated feelings of anger, disgust, surprise, and confusion way above the US ad norm. 

Other notable ads to make the top 10 include a TikTok video of a speech Harris made warning of the dangers of "Project 2025" (4th) and two videos posted on the Donald J Trump YouTube channel – "Silent No More" and "A Message From Gold Star Families", in which grieving families of the military personnel who lost their lives during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan criticise Harris for her role in the operation and subsequent actions.

To see the full list of the Top 10 most emotionally engaging online ads and TikTok videos of the 2024 US Presidential campaign, click here.

DAIVID CEO and founder Ian Forrester said: "Emotions are certainly running high in this election, and that’s reflected in the ads we tested. Ads from this year’s Presidential Election are 33% more likely to make people feel intense negative emotions and 6% more likely to make you feel emotional. Normally, when we analyse ads we tend to focus on positive emotions, but negative emotions can be very effectively used by political parties to get people out to the ballot box to vote. But, with our data showing a clear correlation between attention levels and the use of positive emotions, both campaigns have to be careful that too much negativity can lead to people disconnecting from politics altogether."