One of the topics being discussed by the community of late is Cardano’s lackluster performance in the crypto market, compared to its competitors, and how this might be a result of the marketing of Cardano—highlighted stupendously by the Cardano Girls. Here, we’ll look at why marketing is needed for new technologies, the hits and misses of Cardano marketing so far, and the opportunity for the community to lead the marketing effort.

Important of Marketing for Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is a new technology that, unlike many recent technological leaps, changes the underlying systems that things operate on, e.g., financial instruments and operations, the record of ownership, and identity, to use a decentralized infrastructure. As a result of blockchain’s nuances, there is, currently, a large learning curve for onboarding individuals to the industry. After they’ve wrapped their head around the basics and jumped through the hoops to get in, new users need to choose a blockchain to use. Marketing helps to teach new users how this technology can benefit them, and help to direct them to the most suitable and secure network for their needs. However….

Blockchain Technology’s Speculation Dilemma

The crypto markets are also rife with price volatility and known for their ability to generate huge profits for traders. Because the mainstream media, and a large part of the crypto ecosystem, focuses on price and not utility and use cases, these newcomers are here to speculate on prices. This sees them head to the blockchain with the tokens they want to speculate on and, typically, the most activity, rather than the blockchain best suited to their security and needs. Because of the emerging nature of blockchain technology, it could be argued that this “speculation dilemma” is the marketing as it is onboarding users and introducing them to the technology—even if they are just speculating and not utilizing it to its full potential.

The Hits and Misses of Cardano Marketing

With marketing being a hot topic we’ve collated some of the hits and misses of Cardano marketing so far.

Hits of Cardano Marketing

Unordered listTechnological Superiority: Cardano offers one of the most decentralized and secure layer 1 blockchain, with a secure, decentralized scaling solution currently under development.
Cardano Ambassadors Program: A group of skilled and competent individuals has emerged, producing media in multiple mediums to help promote Cardano—subsidized by the Cardano Foundation.
Cardano Summit: While very much a community event, this gives people a real-world place to see what is happening on Cardano.
IOG and Cardano Foundation Partnerships: These include the Georgian National Wine Agency, DISH, the Ethiopian government, and the Dubai Police.
Cardano Event Booths: Community members have hosted booths at some events such as ETHDenver and Consensus, promoting not only Cardano as a solution but also as a part of the blockchain ecosystem.
Race Car Sponsorship: The sponsoring of stock car racing teams in the US by Hosky and others.
Misses of Cardano Marketing

Unordered listSlow Development: Cardano’s slow and steady way of doing things has hampered the perception of the blockchain in the wider crypto space, which continues to harm it.
Charles’ Ethereum History: However petty it is, there are many who point to Charles and him leaving Ethereum and use it as a negative when describing Cardano to others.
WalletConnect: dcSpark worked to bring blockchain technology’s biggest interconnectivity protocol to Cardano and it has not been adopted by the majority of wallets and protocols in the ecosystem.
Lack of Hackathons: Cardano’s lack of hackathons with large prize pools, fails to attract new developers to the network and the Plutus language. For reference, Solana is currently hosting a hackathon with $1 million in prizes.
Lack of Degenerate Nature: Cardano, and the community's seriousness goes against it — community members even ask their popular YouTubes not to lean into this status quo — as there is a seeming lack of tolerance for using the network for degenerative things. We do have @LucidCiC though.
Incorrectness of EDI: The Edinburgh Decentralization Index (EDI) gives Cardano a MAV of 66, when community consensus seems to be a Nakamoto coefficient of 35. Seeing as IOHK helped to fund the Blockchain Technology Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh that created it, this looks very bad on Cardano.
Community Led Marketing

The reality of Cardano is that the Cardano Foundation, IOHK, and Emurgo are explicitly out there to target businesses, corporations, and governments; aiming to bring them a blockchain that can provide them with solutions. When they come online they will bring users with them. So, if we’re to market Cardano to the majority of meme coin speculators and NFT traders currently using blockchains the community needs to take the lead. The recent success of the Cardano Girls video can help to serve as a template for how the Cardano community can let its hair down and connect with users on a new, less technical level. Discussions for this happen on Twitter, however, Project Catalyst and the Cardano Forum are also two other places where community members can come together to come up with innovative, viral, and otherwise new ways to promote Cardano to the wider crypto community and its newest members.

Conclusion: Balancing Degeneracy With the Decentralized Mission

The Cardano Girls have shed light on the fact that Cardano is seemingly stuck at an impasse, attempting to balance the serious side, e.g., potentially attracting the interest of US states looking for voting solutions, with the playful degenerate nature that currently dominates cryptocurrencies. The first half is the focus of the Cardano Foundation, IOHK, and Emurgo, the latter is being left up to the Cardano community. Got any ideas for Cardano