Members of Gen Z have extremely short attention spans—around eight seconds to be exact—and are prone to multitasking to stay focused, even when the task is simply watching TikToks.
These realities ushered in the split-screen TikTok, or a TikTok video that shows two videos at once, often a lengthy story juxtaposed with video game speed runs.
Now, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is taking advantage of the TikTok style to engage with Gen Z voters and hold their attention. Today, @KamalaHQ posted a split-screen TikTok showing former President Donald Trump talking about his views on abortion and a clip of someone playing the game Subway Surfer. The latter is a fixture in many split-screen videos.
The assortment of clips posted by the Harris campaign include Trump saying that he believes women who receive unlawful abortions should be punished, celebrating the overturning of Roe V. Wade, and dodging questions about restricting contraceptives and a national abortion ban.
The campaign captioned the video "oof."
@kamalahq oof
♬ original sound - Kamala HQ
The video received a flood of positive comments from TikTok users who said that its tactic was brilliant and effective—and that it even worked on them.
"Top-tier information conveyance," one TikTok user wrote.
"Now this is the epitome of Tik Tok marketing," another person said.
"I'm afraid this worked on me," a TikTok user shared.
As of publication, the video had over 60,000 views on TikTok.
It also went viral on X as well, where the strategy got even more praise.
"OH MY GOD IT'S REAL. THIS IS ON THE OFFICIAL KAMALAHQ TIKTOK ACCOUNT," an X user tweeted alongside the video. "THEY HAVE SUBWAY SURFER GAMEPLAY NEXT TO A CLIP."
"It’s the most effective way to relay clips longer than 3 seconds to Zoomers!" an X user said, referring to Gen Z by one of its nicknames.
"This is how you overcome digital ads not being as effective as television," another X user said.
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