How do you make sure that an ad is entertaining, engaging, and relevant -- in a word, "premium" -- while still executing on the brand's goals? Tamara Bousquet, EVP, media director for MEA Digital, posed the question to the panel discussing "What Is Premium Now?" at OMMA Premium Display.

MediaPost columnist Barbara Lippert just posed her opening question to OMMA (Premium) Display opening keynote conversation subject Eric Weisberg by recalling the golden age of Madison Avenue when DDB Founder Bill Bernbach first began pairing copywriters with art directors to create advertising for the new electronic medium of television. Nowadays, that team-up seems quaint, Lippert noted, as agencies team other "creative" specialists to come up with big ideas, especially "creative people and technologists."

OMMA (Premium) Display programming chair Steve Smith says the word "premium" is becoming overwrought, and maybe even diluted by the number of ways (and the number of people) who are throwing it around these days.

MediaPost Chief Ken Fadner is warming up the acts for OMMA (Premium) Display (note the parenthetical reference, because it's important) in Los Angeles this morning, and he's explaining why the emphasis on the premium display ad marketplace. It's because much of the industry's discussion lately is on the "non-premium" side of the business - the parts that have been driven by data, analytics, technology and, of course, programmatic trading, etc.