• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, August 7, 2013

Ed Haslam, YuMe’s senior vice president of marketing said today that YuMe’s entry as a publicly traded stock, coming after the somewhat lackluster debut of Tremor Video a couple months ago, at least created interest and attention in the digital ad market by investors.

“From that perspective, it’s a good thing,” he said, though leaving unsaid the fact that Tremor’s stock price has fallen some 20-25% since its debut and is trading today in the $8 per share range.  It reports its first quarterly results on Thursday. Haslam never made direct reference to Tremor’s IPO, at least not by name.

YuMe had intended to price itself for the opening at $12-$14 per share at one point, but Haslam said today—anticipating the question—that it was YuMe’s investment banking advisors who recommended they open at a much lower $9 per share.

The “modest price,” Haslam said, meant YuMe didn’t fall below expectations right from the gate and could build a base to climb from. “I think that was wise counsel from our advisors,” he said.  YuMe was trading at 8.98 a share shortly before noon.

Haslam said it will continue to be a “tech driven company” to grow and will work at continuing good relationships with major advertisers—it handles advertising for some 60 of the top brands in various categories—to grow the company. But it faces formidable competition from Google and YouTube’s Ad Sense and DoubleClick, particularly.  In its filing, YuMe also mentions uncertainties forging new relationships if more advertisers choose to take their business in-house rather than work though ad agencies.