Cardano Growth and Marketing Budget Proposal

[BudgetCommittee]

Growth and Marketing Budget

Here you can find all the details about the proposed Growth and Marketing budget for 2025

The budget process and supporting documentation represent a collaborative work-in-progress, compiled from inputs across Intersect committees and working groups. All figures, timelines, and proposals are strictly indicative and subject to community feedback, market conditions, and on-chain approvals. Nothing herein is finalized.

More details can be found here and the detailed spreadsheet can be found here

Growth & Marketing Committee members

This proposal was defined by the Growth & Marketing via community consultation

Voting: Laura M.
Voting: Nathan A.
Voting: Wes P.
Voting: Martin M.
Voting: Simon F.
Voting: Gintama
Voting: Mubarak O.
Voting: Tim H.
SME: Rand M.
SME: Natalia
SME: John G.
SME: Juan S.
SME: Jose I.

---

Proposal Summary

The Growth & Marketing Committee is a newly formed committee, elevated from a working group earlier this month. As a result, the ideas and suggestions need continued refinement. During February, the new Growth and Marketing Committee will be working through their proposals, hand-in-hand with the broader socialization period.

The proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal period will encompass all funding requests made by the Growth & Marketing Committee.

The primary mandate for allocating these requested funds is to comprehensively cover all marketing-related expenses associated with the promotion and marketing initiatives for Cardano. This encompasses a wide range of activities, including, but not limited to, advertising campaigns across various media channels, organizing events that showcase Cardano’s offerings, and hosting meet-ups to foster community engagement and awareness. By ensuring these expenses are adequately funded, we aim to enhance Cardano’s visibility and effectively reach our target audience.

The budget is requesting a total of ₳ 20,394,540. This is to be managed by one Treasury withdrawal action using a smart contract:

June 2025: ₳ 5,000,000
July 2025: ₳ 5,000,000
August 2025: ₳ 4,000,000
September 2025: ₳ 3,000,000
October 2025: ₳ 3,394,540

---

Proposal Summary

Proposed Initiatives

1. Digital Marketing: Digital ads, such as Google Ads, social media ads, and display advertising, are foundational in driving quick visibility and user acquisition. A significant portion is allocated here because digital advertising allows for precise targeting and scalability.

2. Event Marketing: In the blockchain space, events such as conferences, summits, workshops, hackathons, and meetups are vital for networking, community building, and brand awareness. A budget allocation allows for participation in global events and organizing local meetups. It should also cover the logistics and promotion of Cardano-specific events, which are crucial for fostering community engagement and educating potential users and developers.

3. Content Marketing: Content marketing is essential for long-term growth and thought leadership in the blockchain ecosystem. This includes creating educational content, blog posts, videos, and tutorials.

4. Seo Marketing: This is an essential complementary marketing strategy frequently paired with Content Marketing. It ensures that content is actually found by search engines by optimizing content with specific keywords and building backlink profiles that improve SERP and increase brand authority.

5. Partnerships and Collaborations: Forming strategic partnerships with other tech companies, educational institutions, and non-profits can expand reach and credibility.

6. Public Relations and Media: PR is key to managing brand reputation, securing media coverage, and establishing Cardano as a reputable entity in the blockchain space. We would allocate funds for consistent press releases, media appearances, and engagement with journalists and bloggers in the crypto world.

7. Influencer Marketing: Influencers play a crucial role in the blockchain and crypto space because they can effectively reach niche audiences that are highly engaged. Allocating the funds to this ensures a presence on platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, where many crypto enthusiasts and potential adopters are active.

What will be the benefit to the Cardano Community?

Increased adoption and ecosystem growth

The Marketing WG’s initiatives are designed to boost the global adoption of Cardano. By targeting specific demographics and industries (such as supply chain, data security, and healthcare), the WG can significantly increase transaction volume and the number of unique wallet addresses, which are critical metrics for ecosystem growth.

Strengthening brand positioning and reputation

Building and fostering partnerships within and outside the Cardano ecosystem will not only enhance Cardano’s utility but also its credibility and trust within the blockchain industry. By connecting with global financial institutions and other key players, the WG can open new avenues for Cardano’s integration into various industries, further solidifying its market position.

Community empowerment and engagement

Events like the Cardano Summit and hackathons are not just about networking but also about fostering a sense of community. These events will empower developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts by providing platforms for collaboration, innovation, and learning. This, in turn, builds a more cohesive and motivated community that is invested in the success of Cardano.

By supporting hackathons and developer conferences, the WG will promote the development of new applications and use cases on the Cardano blockchain. This not only drives technical advancement but also showcases Cardano’s potential to a wider audience, attracting talent and investment into the ecosystem while also contributing towards the 1st Pillar of Intersect.

Long-term sustainability and governance

As Cardano has now transitioned towards community-led governance (CIP 1694), the Marketing WG plays a crucial role in educating the community about governance processes. Ensuring broader participation and a more inclusive decision-making process is essential for the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem. By ensuring that the community is informed and active, the WG contributes to the resilience and adaptability of the platform in the face of evolving market challenges. In this way, the Marketing WG contributes also towards the 2nd Pillar of Intersect in a significant way.

Data-driven decision making

The WG will generate valuable data from its marketing initiatives across different geographic locations. This data will provide insights into where investments yield the highest impact, enabling more efficient allocation of resources in future campaigns. This approach ensures that Cardano’s growth strategies are both effective and sustainable.

Budget Details

Requested budget: ₳ 20,394,540

The detailed spreadsheet can be found here

[brouwerQ]

I see there’s 2M ADA proposed for Community Led Marketing, but if this is going to agencies/projects that are only really big in our own Cardano ecosystem, this is a bit a waste of money I think.
We need marketing outside of our own ecosystem imho, to onboard new people onto Cardano. This can be targeted to people in the broader crypto ecosystem, but also to people not yet into crypto/Cardano.

I would like to see for each category which audiences are the target (Cardano ecosystem, crypto ecosystem or outsiders) and what part of the budget set aside tot that category.

[mercy_tm]

Issue
While this budget reflects good geographical spread, from a community member perspective however, I cannot support it in good faith. Because as the saying goes, “Invest in the team, not the idea.”

Concerns:

• The committee does not seem sufficiently bootstrapped or cohesive enough to manage this entire budget.
• The committee was approved less than a month ago, having been upgraded from the marketing working group. Based on my experience, some members prefer to prioritize exclusivity and control, instead of structuring the committee to drive growth and adoption.
• The focus is therefore heavily on events and marketing, lacking a clear strategy to retain newer Cardano community members reached.
• There is an unhealthy power dynamic on this committee, with two voting seats appearing to belong to a single entity.

Overall, this committee gives the impression that the transition from a working group to a committee was rushed to secure budget control. IMO, strong consideration should be given to putting this budget bucket back under the remit of the Membership and Community committee or other similar established committee for the 2025 budget season.

[TeslasWorld]

It is all very well to carry out mass marketing events, but how do we support that activity at a grass roots level? The focus and spend on Africa is under represented when compared to other regions, with regard to raising awareness and adoption. Should we not spend more time researching much smaller regional/local events to reach the grass roots end users, or developers? For example there is a major block chain event in Mauritius with attendee’s coming from the entire region, simply due to the regulated framework for Digital Assets already established.

[YUTA_Oishi]

As for the GMC Budget, I feel that at least the following two points are necessary.

1. Please write the target value of the performance KPI in the ROI column

In the MCC Budget v3.9.4, we tried to include this as much as possible to be a good example. Please refer to the “ROI” column of “Drive membership offline/online / Internal management and others”. To be honest, there are some items that we have not yet defined. We are looking for your feedback.

*Please be careful of the difference between performance KPIs and process KPIs. For example, the number of meetups held or the number of speakers who will appear are often process KPIs. There is no point in holding 100,000 meetups. What is important is what you get as a result.

*Please be sure to define the “target value” of the performance KPI. Write how much DRep you should expect.

Even those who strongly oppose influencer marketing might change their mind if, for example, the budget declares incredibly ambitious performance KPI target values ​​and defines realistic process KPIs to achieve them.

2. This assumes 1, but define a process to stop funding to the vendor and return the funds to the treasury if the performance KPIs do not grow as expected for the amount of funding invested.

If you start to realize early on that it is not effective after investing your funds, you need a process to stop funding and return the funds to the treasury.

For example, let’s say you define a performance KPI of 100,000 ADA online marketing, with 100,000 people creating new Cardano wallets and holding ADA. First, test 1,000 ADA, and if the number of people who create Cardano wallets and hold ADA is 50, you will not be able to achieve the goal if you continue like this, so stop funding and return 99,000 ADA to the treasury.

I understand that the GMC is not an easy committee and I am always grateful to the people who work there.

[YUTA_Oishi]

Select all the items that you think should be increased.

• 2025 Cardano Summit & 2026 Down Payments ₳3,100,000
• Regional Tech Events ₳4,700,000
• Community Led Events ₳800,000
• Industry Events with Cardano booths (sponsorship, booth build, side events, and 6 tickets included plus community travel fund) ₳4,654,540
• Community Led Marketing ₳2,000,000
• Digital Marketing - Social Media ₳400,000
• Digital Marketing - Advertising ₳500,000
• Digital Marketing - Bounties ₳200,000
• Digital Content Production ₳600,000
• Print Content/Merch Production ₳100,000
• Public Relations and Media ₳900,000
• Partnerships and Collaborations ₳600,000
• Influencer Marketing - RFP Influencer Directory ₳80,000
• Influencer Marketing ₳360,000
• Research & Development ₳200,000
• Research & Analysis ₳500,000
• Marketing Education & Support ₳400,000
• Cardano Reporting - Messari ₳300,000
• None of them apply.

Select all the items that you think should be reduced.

• 2025 Cardano Summit & 2026 Down Payments ₳3,100,000
• Regional Tech Events ₳4,700,000
• Community Led Events ₳800,000
• Industry Events with Cardano booths (sponsorship, booth build, side events, and 6 tickets included plus community travel fund) ₳4,654,540
• Community Led Marketing ₳2,000,000
• Digital Marketing - Social Media ₳400,000
• Digital Marketing - Advertising ₳500,000
• Digital Marketing - Bounties ₳200,000
• Digital Content Production ₳600,000
• Print Content/Merch Production ₳100,000
• Public Relations and Media ₳900,000
• Partnerships and Collaborations ₳600,000
• Influencer Marketing - RFP Influencer Directory ₳80,000
• Influencer Marketing ₳360,000
• Research & Development ₳200,000
• Research & Analysis ₳500,000
• Marketing Education & Support ₳400,000
• Cardano Reporting - Messari ₳300,000
• None of them apply.

Please select all that you think are appropriate.

• 2025 Cardano Summit & 2026 Down Payments ₳3,100,000
• Regional Tech Events ₳4,700,000
• Community Led Events ₳800,000
• Industry Events with Cardano booths (sponsorship, booth build, side events, and 6 tickets included plus community travel fund) ₳4,654,540
• Community Led Marketing ₳2,000,000
• Digital Marketing - Social Media ₳400,000
• Digital Marketing - Advertising ₳500,000
• Digital Marketing - Bounties ₳200,000
• Digital Content Production ₳600,000
• Print Content/Merch Production ₳100,000
• Public Relations and Media ₳900,000
• Partnerships and Collaborations ₳600,000
• Influencer Marketing - RFP Influencer Directory ₳80,000
• Influencer Marketing ₳360,000
• Research & Development ₳200,000
• Research & Analysis ₳500,000
• Marketing Education & Support ₳400,000
• Cardano Reporting - Messari ₳300,000
• None of them apply.

Select all the items you think should be removed.

• 2025 Cardano Summit & 2026 Down Payments ₳3,100,000
• Regional Tech Events ₳4,700,000
• Community Led Events ₳800,000
• Industry Events with Cardano booths (sponsorship, booth build, side events, and 6 tickets included plus community travel fund) ₳4,654,540
• Community Led Marketing ₳2,000,000
• Digital Marketing - Social Media ₳400,000
• Digital Marketing - Advertising ₳500,000
• Digital Marketing - Bounties ₳200,000
• Digital Content Production ₳600,000
• Print Content/Merch Production ₳100,000
• Public Relations and Media ₳900,000
• Partnerships and Collaborations ₳600,000
• Influencer Marketing - RFP Influencer Directory ₳80,000
• Influencer Marketing ₳360,000
• Research & Development ₳200,000
• Research & Analysis ₳500,000
• Marketing Education & Support ₳400,000
• Cardano Reporting - Messari ₳300,000
• None of them apply.

[gnobudy]

Funding for ‘influencer marketing’ immediately conjures images of the worst kind of influencer price shilling nonsense.
Those kinds of people behave unethically for ‘likes’ and attention, that feed both their egos and their wallet.

• So how do we support a better social media landscape for Cardano without adding fuel to the worst kind of influencer?

Firstly, we are not proposing that money goes directly to influencers. We’re proposing an entirely different way of supporting a more positive online environment overall,

• Instead when builders on Cardano submit a marketing proposal that is successfully selected for funding, they will have the option to also get some funds from this ‘influencer’ bucket.
  With that, they can select a person with a social media presence to partner with. They will work together to produce a series of informative tweets, interviews or other content to highlight what their project is doing, which is in addition to whatever other marketing they are doing.

-The project decides who to represent them.
-The project maintains editorial control.
-The project maintains quality control.

-There are many people within our ecosystem with a few thousand followers, relatively small but engaged audiences, who are trusted and respected.
-This funding channel opens up to them the opportunity, that they might not have even considered before, to make connections, friendships and partnerships with projects in the ecosystem they know and love. To communicate sponsored informative content about Cardano and its builders.

-The aim is to support a more mature level of output about the growth that we are seeing and supporting around Cardano. To raise more conversations about the teams and opportunities on Cardano.

-And to show developers considering building on Cardano that we are an ecosystem that is being proactive in improving the quality and conduct of the social media environment in which they would have to operate.

We don’t have to try this.

We don’t have to try to improve the social media environment around Cardano.

We can do nothing.

And continue to ignore that the current social media environment is toxic to new participants considering building or engaging with our ecosystem.

[gnobudy]

Growth and Marketing Committee Budget issue:
There’s a bit of discussion about the line item of marketing funds for influencers.

• The problem with funding influencers directly are that we don’t have the time or resources to do detailed quality control, editorial control or legal review. If they get funds to market ‘Cardano’ directly, we would be placing our name and reputation in their hands and we would have some level of liability should they include any inaccuracy when mentioning other projects or chains.
• People are assuming, and you may be too, that proposals will come in from influencers to withdraw money from that line item - just like every other line item.
• However, there is a much more skilful way in which we can use these funds, one that gives us some hugely important benefits that we wouldn’t be able to get in any other way:
  We only give out the “Influencer funds” in partnership with other project marketing proposals.
• It would work like this:
  Whenever projects submit proposals for other line items, we get can let it be known that proposals that include a small allocation from the influencer bucket will be looked at more favourably. So all ‘influencer’ funds will be given out in a ‘partnership’ with other projects.
• This accomplishes our goals of getting influencers positively engaged and them seeing a financial pathway to being positive about Cardano in general. It gets the influencer funds given out in such a way that the project is responsible for the quality and editorial oversight, and legal liability rests with them. They can then get the influencer they’ve chosen to work with to do a series of tweets or interviews, or other content about them.
• The project proposal may just get a few hundred Ada from the ‘Influencer funds’ for a series of tweets or more for more involved work. The details can be worked out collaboratively between them. The important thing here is that we get a majority of project proposals to get something from this bucket.
• On the surface it’s a quick easy way to get more positive social media content about Cardano projects. But the real benefit is something much more fundamental.
• We will be showing to all of crypto influencers, that on Cardano there is now a new pathway to getting paid. Think about what this will do for influencers incentives = it will make them want to improve their standing within the Cardano ecosystem so that projects will want to be associated and partner with them.
• This means crypto influencers who don’t normally cover Cardano can get partnerships to promote Cardano projects, to their crypto audiences who don’t often hear about Cardano. This is what we want.
• It will improve the quality and ‘maturity’ of online commentary, because there are two main ways influencers can improve their reputation with our ecosystem.
• First they can delete old outdated negative content.
• Second they can demonstrate their value by putting out free positive content.
  By showing influencers there is this new partnership model by which they can get paid, we get benefits that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to get in any other way. And we get these for free, just by changing the incentive structure.

[Nana_Kwadwo_Safo]

@gnobudy

This means crypto influencers who don’t normally cover Cardano can get partnerships to promote Cardano projects, to their crypto audiences who don’t often hear about Cardano. This is what we want.

Has this particular paragraph been said about this budget before?
Seems like it took a long time for this simple but necessary explanation of what this line of item seeks to achieve to come out. Maybe the way would be cleared out for some DReps now.

[Nana_Kwadwo_Safo]

Great points outlined thus far. The little bit I want to add is that we, together with the projects would have to be wary of bad influencers who can easily appear to be good.

[gnobudy]

Hi Nana,
Thank you for your feedback. If this explanation should have come sooner, thats on me. The two posts above were originally X posts last week that together reached about 4k views. There has been some engagement on the topic and, despite initial negative assumptions, when the detail is understood people have come around to how this could be a very economic way of shifting the social media environment around our ecosystem.
Its not about large grants to famous online personalities. Its about micro-grants that allows projects to connect with people who are knowledgable about their work and are respected with their audience. Its about doing what the community always demand that the community’s decentralised marketing does, namely supporting projects building on Cardano.
This supports them by getting their message out through more social media channels, and it supports them by creating a more positive social media environment around the whole ecosystem. It does this through the aggregated impact of having people online with even a few thousand followers know that they could partner with Cardano projects through a micro-grant. And since projects would only want to connect their reputation with ‘influencers’ who are ‘good’, it creates an incentive for better, more constructive and optimistic output about Cardano and its projects from everyone online who might see themselves as being able to make this kind of partnership.

[gnobudy]

Hi Teslasworld,
You make very vaild comments. So the total events budget is broken down into several categories. Specifically in the regional events category, the indicative allocation is equal between all the regions. The other line items have certain events listed that we think proposals will be submitted to withdraw for those events, and so we have allocated an amount of funds to cover those expected applications from the community. But none of the events will be ‘run’ by the committee. There will be an open and transparent process whereby events company’s apply to run some of the big events, and community members will submit proposals for events that they want to put on. So theres event support in this budget available from the very large events to the very local.
If there is something in this growth and marketing budget that makes you think that one region is under represented compared to others please let us know.

[TeslasWorld]

My point is that 75% of the global population are located in Africa and Asia, I believe that community begins where the masses are, not in the wealth centres where we are already established. It’s all about grass roots education, awareness and demonstration of what exactly the blockchain and Cardano can do to improve their lives. if we constantly spend on established big events or in large cities we miss the vast majority of the population.

[gnobudy]

I think those sentiments would be shared by everyone on the committee, which is why we’ve proposed buckets of funding for the community to submit proposals to withdraw from, that support events for both the active community in the places where they currently are, and support proposals that aim to build more awareness and engagement about Cardano in places around the world where we are not currently well known. And its important to recognise that it is not the committee which will be creating and running events, but rather supporting proposals from the community, from people like yourself perhaps, through an open and transparent process, who wish to grow grassroots support in the places where they, or you, currently are.

[TeslasWorld]

My experience with Intersect does not reflect the sentiment you, and the committee have. I observed for a while the Community Hubs WG and budgets, and had to leave because it just does not make any sense. I am a mature businessman, and know what budgets are, and their purpose, if we can’t understand what has been delivered to date, for a spend that exceeded a supposed cap, then it’s a free for all. If we dont know what the KPI’s are, or a detailed costs analysis per region, how is it possible to create an accurate budget. I love Cardano as a blockchain, and will continue to incorporate it in our own innovative projects, that are for the community (renewable energy and other such things). But for the budgets etc my team and I cannot wrap our heads around it all.

[gnobudy]

I respect that perspective, many on the various committees are in the process of wrapping their heads around it too!
I know what you mean about KPI’s etc appearing to not be set at the budget stage, that seems odd to me, in comparison to the private companies and charities I’ve been a part of.
However, I’ll do my best to explain what is happening, in good faith as best I can.
With the Growth and marketing budget to take it as an example, is this: The budget line items are what the committee has worked out what, using professional guidance and industry comparisons, it deems appropriate for that item, for a 30bn dollar crypto ecosystem. And the proposed marketing budget is ticking all the boxes that one would expect us to address to maintain and improve our standing in a competitive crypto marketplace.
Once the permission to move forward is obtained, with the budget approval, then the committee will produce CRD’s Committee Requirement Documents, which are then used by Intersect’s Operational Services to produce RFP’s, Request for proposals. Vendors, like marketing companys, then submit proposals which would address the required need and target the KPI’s which have been set through the CRD and RFP process.
One of the criticisms that has been received during this “budget socialisation” process is that this is too much money for an untested committee to have to spend, create and implement all these marketing streams. Or what about checks and balances, maybe the committee pays themselves to do these marketing things.
However the committee is not ‘doing’ any of these things, its not creating and implementing them. It is managing a process whereby third party professional company’s are competing for the work, and it has a management and oversight function. This is in an open and transparent way.
So to take your point about the budget not reflecting differing costs per region, and the GMC regional events budget as an example: the budget is allocating an equal amount per region, and the proposals that come in to withdraw funds from those regional buckets will be detailed with the expected costs at local rates and what KPI’s they could meet with their proposal.
I’ve done my best to address some of the issues you raised, but I appreciate that there may be a longer conversation required!

[TeslasWorld]

Thanks for taking the time to address the concerns, I appreciate your efforts. It is for the community to decide at the end of the day how to progress forwards. We are talking about serious amounts of monetary value whilst not having the basics in place in order to paint an accurate picture or plan. There is no oversight or audit on previous spends to understand what has been done and what has been achieved. The MBO has no experience in managing such a scale, nor does it have a track record in success. I will leave it at that.

[gnobudy]

I appreciate your engagement too!

Beyond the concerns you raised, to speak more generally, the way I see things playing out is that some of the feedback Intersect has received consist of two demands,
One, that oversight and audit are increased
Two, that the administration fees are reduced.
I would say that in almost every budget AMA there is some question about both topics, and the answer that comes back is that there are multiple checks and balances, reporting hierarchies and internal as well as third party audit trails covering all aspects of previous and future spending and milestone achievements.
It is in large part the extensive audit and oversight stipulations that create the administration fee. And, although I do not speak for Intersect, the way I see it is, with the best will in the world its not possible to accommodate both demands, to slash the fees while increasing the very things that the fees are paying for.

[TeslasWorld]

It is very simple to have an open ledger of all transactions, which can be externally verified by an independent audit firm. Audit and Administration fee’s should be separate line items. We need true financial managers who have experience handling big budgets, because the complexities of the world require that. It would actually be better to create a new entity that handles all the transactions on behalf of the community, this will lift a tremendous burden from Intersect. We have inherited a moving freight train, which may, or may not be ready and prepared to handle the demands of the load it is carrying. Anyway, our voices and views are just more words to the endless words already written. Whatever happens happens, only the future will reveal answers many of us seek.

[HeptaSean]

This proposal in the shape above should in my opinion not be approved at all! And this cannot be fixed by minor adjustments.

Most of the text are just generic commonplaces from Marketing 101 which could be said about marketing soap or shoes to the general public, but do they even make any sense for “marketing” a blockchain?

Does it make sense if a “commodity” or “currency”, a “decentralised ecosystem” does centralised marketing efforts? Do gold, the USD or the CHF have a marketing department paying for Google Ads? What is the product, who is the vendor?

What shall the message be? “Buy more ADA, bro!“?!?

Where should the “Digital Marketing” and “SEO Marketing” efforts send people? Where do you want to publish the “Content Marketing” products? cardano.org? Have you talked with the CF about it? intersectmbo.org?

Does a group of marketers/PR people focused on advertising something™ have the legitimation and expertise to promote and negotiate “Partnerships” for the whole of “Cardano”?

Can “Cardano” be treated as a brand like any other? Who should be considered the entity behind it? CF? Intersect? With what legitimation? (Currently, the CF holds the trademark “Cardano” and as far as I can tell tries to be very cautious in using it to represent “Cardano” as a whole.)

When people get scammed and want to talk to the manager or a government wants a registration for the company behind the security “ADA” so that there is someone who can get sued if things go sideways, we have spent years trying to make clear that there is no entity “Cardano”, that it is a permissionless network with many independent actors on it.

In my opinion, marketing should be done by the particular projects and companies building on this ecosystem, not by “the ecosystem” as a whole. After all, those – the DEXes, NFT projects, games, real-world asset providers, … – are the ones that provide the reasons for people to consider becoming active in this ecosystem.

Should those marketing efforts be financed by the treasury, by all of us? Could a service provider – an Intersect “committee” or someone else – provide support for that? Difficult!

What is funded from the treasury should not benefit a single competitor and omit all the other competitors in the same area. What could maybe work quite well is providing neutral resources – educational material, documentation, how-tos, … – so that not every project has to reinvent the wheel when starting to market their thing as the new hot stuff on Cardano.

And we probably wouldn’t want to associate “Cardano” as a whole too closely with specific projects: We cannot guarantee that they won’t fail or rug at some point. We have seen more than enough of those cases, also among the ones that previously were in high regard in the community. It would be a catastrophe if the impression would be that “Cardano” has “officially” endorsed one of them when that happens again.

Anyway, this is a case of “back to the drawing board”. In this state, I will surely not approve this budget.

EDIT: To preemptively answer the “Why didn’t you come up with that earlier?” question: This is what I wrote in the #wg-marketing channel in the Intersect Discord on 25th November 2024 and they said that they saved it to their collection, so that it doesn’t get lost:

Discord Feedback 2024-11-25

Reading all this, I as a dRep (albeit a very small 0.01% one, so you don’t have to be disturbed) feel less and less inclined to give any treasury money to marketing.
Going to break that down a bit:

First, I am very conservative in what I want to fund from the treasury, basically just things that have to be funded from it because there is not really a viable business case to fund it from another source: node implementations, open source libraries, maybe wallet apps, …
So, first question is if marketing should be funded from the treasury at all. Cardano is an ecosystem, a basic infrastructure where diverse businesses can build on. Does gold in and of itself have a centralised marketing initiative? Does Bitcoin? Does the USD? Does the Internet?

Second, if we decide to do marketing for Cardano as a whole, question is: “To whom?”
To the general public? Do we want to convince people to gamble with their life savings here? To do what? Just wait for numbers going up … maybe? Or to use services on Cardano? Which ones do we feature there? Why should their competition be content with funding that from a treasury that is also theirs? What do we do if one of the featured services rugs or collapses? What is the contingency plan for “But ‘Cardano’ said they are a-okay!!!”?
Maybe, the services building on Cardano, directly searching for customers should be the ones doing the marketing, not the network as a whole?
So, it could make sense to market not to the general public, but “just” to businesses potentially building on Cardano. But should that be done by a centralised “Cardano Marketing Initiative” or rather by individual development and service vendors that can actually offer them the necessities for realising that?

In both cases, an entity doing marketing leads to expectations that there is also an entity responsible for the thing being marketed.
A much more worthwhile thing that could potentially be financed from the treasury would be support for Cardano users now done mostly by some more or less volunteers. Up to now, it was not easy, but at least consistent to explain to people that “Cardano” is a permissionless network, not an entity, and they have to watch out with whom they are really dealing when acting on that network. If “Cardano” can order ads at Google, it becomes much harder to explain to people why it cannot also provide support, guarantees, protection, redemption when they are scammed …

Third is the approach how this is requested. I’m already very angry at the budget committee for planning to do this large overall budget that the on-chain vote then can only say Yes or No to. That is incredibly disrepectful to the dReps. We have built this complex system of on-chain votes not to just get all or nothing votes, where the nuclear “nothing” option will most likely never be taken out of fear. Such votes mean hardly anything, they are just meaningless acclamations.
If “we” do marketing at all, I don’t want to have to decide to throw money at Google and at clueless YouTube shillers (“influencers”), just because I think that the content marketing part sounds okay and some geniuses thought that I have to take the whole package.

Fourth, I don’t want to establich a centralised “Cardano Marketing Department” at Intersect that leads to expectations that it continues to be funded – the one whose fur you are currently selling before the bear is even shot.
And this prematurely selling the fur gives very bad vibes. Y’all make the impression that you think that the dReps simply have to approve your ingenious plan because there is no other and because surely Intersect is Cardano. No, they do not and it is not.

Fifth, the budget as it is now is incredibly rough. It just lists all possible marketing streams without much detail and for some reason assigns the same importance, the same 5% min to 30% max range to all of them. It doesn’t give any reason why this might make sense or not. Why are 5% min, 30% max accidentally the right span for Digital MArketing as well as PR and Media and Research and Analysis?

There would have been a chance to address this. It is a choice not to do that leading to a choice by me as a dRep to oppose this budget.