Creative testing results
UBS
UBS The Craft Mindset
December 16, 2025
With 5.23 seconds of Active Attention, Youtube pre-roll skippable delivers the strongest potential for a category leader to drive brand-building goals. More than 17% of the ad is actively viewed, ensuring the message is absorbed before users scroll, skip, or disengage.
A well-suited supporting platform to extend engagement and reach is General_Web pre-roll. With 3.01 seconds of active attention and 13.23 seconds of passive attention, it reinforces awareness effectively.
With just 0.85 seconds of Active Attention, this format is ineffective for brand awareness, regardless of brand size. Reconsider formats offering less than 2.5 seconds of Active Attention, as they fail to sustain audience engagement before viewer drop-off.
Branding in the first 1–2 seconds of a video can be highly effective in reinforcing brand recognition and building mental availability. However, this benefit is strongest when the distinctive brand assets (DBAs) used are genuinely distinctive, well-established, and already strongly associated with the brand in the minds of the target audience. If early-frame branding relies on assets that are not yet widely recognised or uniquely owned by the brand, there is a risk that these cues do not register as intended - or are misattributed.
These formats support ad lengths beyond 20 seconds, which is good for storytelling and sustained engagement, making them ideal for upper-funnel brand-building campaigns for leader brands. However, leveraging non-skippable formats will encourage greater audience retention and increase likelihood that your brand message is absorbed. Consider using 6 - 15sec ad length on Youtube to benefit from their non-skippable format.