display · creatives · agencies · 2026-07-21
Attention display on a self-serve DSP
High-impact display usually means a specialist desk. Waveforms put sixteen in-slot attention formats on the same self-serve seat as the rest of your book.
Banner blindness is real, and the industry answer has often been proprietary rich-media units sold with curated publisher inventory: long lead times, opaque packaging, and a desk between you and the creative.
That model works for some flights. It is a poor fit for self-serve teams that need named formats they can generate, preview, and traffic like everything else on the seat.
In-slot attention, not page takeovers
Waveforms are Waveband's catalog of sixteen HTML5 attention formats: Ripple, Surge, Wake, Crest, Reel, Bloom, Swell, Helix, Split, Beacon, Prism, Tide, Pulse, Current, Stack, and Fathom.
They render inside the ad slot across story and motion, reveal and expand, offer and urgency, and composition. Motion and interaction use CSS and native HTML (no scripts): carousels, muted video, flip, expand, wipe, hotspots, and tickers.
They are not page skins, adhesion bars, or in-image overlays. Those need publisher-owned inventory. Waveforms stay in-slot so you can traffic them on open exchange and deals without a custom publisher build.
Generate in Creative Studio
You generate Waveforms in Creative Studio (/app/studio, creatives:write) from a brand kit and the media each format needs, then attach the resulting html5 creatives to a display line item.
Marketing and docs embed live iframe previews from the same renderer that produces the tag: not static mockups. What you preview is what you traffic.
- Sixteen named HTML5 formats (Ripple through Fathom)
- In-slot only: no page takeovers or adhesion bars
- CSS and native HTML motion (no third-party scripts in the unit)
- Live iframe previews from the production renderer
- Attach to display line items like any other creative
Peak Display for agencies and resellers
When you sell a premium display book, Peak Display is a growth-suite supply playbook (not a creative type). Applying it creates a sellable display package with brand-safe category excludes (IAB25 and IAB26), a $1,500 budget floor, and creative guidance to prefer large-canvas Waveforms plus PMP deals from your own deal library.
It does not ship deal IDs. It packages the offer. It does not invent page takeovers or guarantee viewability. Operators still pick deals and creatives; Peak Display gives you a repeatable way to sell the book.
Same seat as CTV, audio, and the rest
Attention display that lives in a separate specialist desk creates a second trafficking workflow and a second reporting story. Waveforms live on the Waveband DSP next to CTV, video, audio, and DOOH.
That matters for agencies that already struggle to explain why display has its own login. One seat, one take rate schedule, one Signal measurement spine.
How to evaluate attention formats
Ask whether the unit is in-slot or a page takeover. Ask whether you can generate and preview without a publisher engineering ticket. Ask whether the creative type works on open exchange or only on a closed package.
Waveband's bet is named formats you can operate yourself. If you need publisher skins, buy those packages elsewhere and keep Waveforms for the in-slot book you can scale.