Hook rate is the score. This term is the object you are scoring: the first frame, the first burned line, the first sound if anyone has it on. In a mute-autoplay feed those three have to work as a still-plus-type poster that happens to start moving. A greeting, a logo hold, a spoken setup that pays off in second six — the swipe happens before they finish. Cold open is the usual shape of a first-second hook: already in the action, no intro. Pattern interrupt is the same muscle used later in the cut, when the body sags.
The beat has to name the reason to stay. A smash cut to a face that has not said anything yet is cold and empty. Put the claim in the picture or in the burn, then talk. A pack shot with a readable line, a product doing the thing, a mistake already in progress, a number on screen: those are first-second objects. A hook pack is several of those objects rendered as separate clips against one body, so the variable you measure is the open.
Generation makes it cheap to test and cheap to waste. Five opens that are the same smile with a different adjective are not a pack. Change the picture, not only the caption colour. Watch the first second on mute at phone size. If the claim is not on screen yet, the hook has not started.
In practice
- Cut the greeting. If the first line is a welcome, the first-second hook has not started.
- Burn the claim into frame one so mute autoplay still has a reason to stay.
- Test two or more opens on the same body. The metric is hook rate, not whether you like the line.
The mistake to avoid
Spending the first second on a brand sting or a face looking at the lens. That is an intro. The hook is the reason to stay, already visible.
Go deeper
50 plug-and-play AI hooks for short-form video
Fifty proven short-form hooks across 10 categories with explanations of why each one works, plus how to use AI to generate variations and matched visual patterns.
Where you will run into it
- Add a Hook to Your Video — The first second decides if anyone keeps watching.
- Trim a Video — Keep the part you want. Drop the rest.
- AI UGC Video Generator — UGC ads at the speed and price of a prompt.
- AI Video Generator — Text-to-video, image-to-video, and story chaining in one studio.
Related terms
Hook rate
Hook rate meaning: the share of people shown a video who are still watching a few seconds in. It grades the opening, not the body.
Cold open
A cold open starts on the action — no logo, no greeting, no 'hey guys' — so the first frame is already the reason to stay.
Pattern interrupt
A pattern interrupt is a sudden change in picture, sound, or on-screen type that resets attention before the viewer swipes or the retention curve sags.
Retention curve
Retention curve meaning: how many starters are still watching at each second. Watch time is the area under that curve.
Creative fatigue
Creative fatigue meaning: performance decay because the audience has seen the same piece too often, not because the piece changed.
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