Cardano stands at a defining moment. As it unlocks major technical milestones in scalability, governance, and interoperability, the challenge is no longer just building the future – it’s ensuring the world understands it, adopts it, and builds with it.

This proposal delivers the strategic market intelligence infrastructure Cardano needs to lead the next phase of growth with precision, clarity, and credibility. Developed by Wachsman, a leading global communications consultancy with a decade of experience guiding blockchain and Web3 pioneers, the initiative aligns Cardano’s 2025 marketing efforts with verifiable market signals, audience insight, and tested messaging that cuts through noise.

At its core, this initiative equips Cardano with:

• A clear view of where it stands in the L1 landscape through rigorous competitor benchmarking and media sentiment analysis.
• A deeper understanding of its most valuable audiences, including developers, enterprises, institutions, and regulators, and what truly moves them.
• Validated narratives that reflect Cardano’s strengths and values, stress-tested through focus groups and campaign simulations across key regions.
• Quarterly brand health reporting to track narrative traction and enable real-time marketing optimization.
• Actionable playbooks that translate insights into execution, informing everything from campaign rollout to spokesperson strategy.

This is not just a market research program; it’s the strategic foundation for Cardano’s communications and marketing. It ensures Cardano’s communications are not just creative, but accurate and resonant. Not just heard, but believed. And ultimately for Cardano to not just be present in the market, but positioned to win.

By aligning messaging with mission and marketing with data, this proposal delivers long-term value across the Cardano ecosystem, amplifying technical innovation, accelerating adoption, and reinforcing the project’s leadership in a rapidly maturing Web3 landscape.

Cardano lacks the data-driven insight required to compete effectively in an increasingly crowded and fast-moving Layer 1 blockchain space. Without a clear understanding of how it is perceived, who its audiences are, and what messaging truly resonates, its 2025 marketing efforts risk missing the mark, relying on assumptions instead of evidence to shape strategy, positioning, and execution.

This initiative equips Cardano with the intelligence it needs to compete, connect, and grow - all while backed by data, not assumptions.

Who Benefits?

• The entire Cardano community, from developers to ecosystem partners, as well as institutional supporters and end-users.
• Catalyst participants and governance stakeholders who can make better decisions with clearer insights.
• The marketing and communications teams who can better deploy Cardano messaging that actually resonates, globally.

Demonstrated Value / ROI

Sharper Differentiation: Clear benchmarking against other Layer 1s to define what makes Cardano different, and why it matters.

Smarter Campaign and Higher Marketing Efficiency: Messaging and narratives will be tested and validated before launch. Insights will help allocate resources to the most impactful narratives, channels, and audiences, maximizing reach while minimizing waste.

Faster Adoption: By addressing barriers to understanding and engagement, audience insights remove friction, and can help bring in the next wave of developers, enterprises, and ecosystem partners.

Increased Community Confidence: A transparent, research-informed strategy signals to the community that Cardano is not only mission-driven but also market-smart, instilling confidence in its direction and decisions.

Stronger Perception: Real-time brand tracking and sentiment analysis ensure Cardano stays ahead of the narrative and top-of-mind globally.

Bottom Line

This work makes every dollar spent on marketing smarter, every campaign more effective, and every message more aligned with what the world needs to hear from Cardano right now.

The Wachsman proposal is designed to:

• Sharpen Cardano’s market positioning through competitor benchmarking.
• Drive ecosystem awareness and engagement by understanding what resonates with different user segments.
• Validate messaging and narrative strategies to ensure campaigns are evidence-based and adoption-focused.
• Support innovation uptake by translating complex product developments into audience-relevant communications.

In short, the proposal enhances how Cardano’s innovations are understood, adopted, and advocated, making it a strong fit for the Marketing and Innovation category.

This proposal delivers a complete, insight-led strategic research foundation for Cardano’s 2025 marketing and ecosystem engagement efforts. The target outcome is a fully validated messaging and market intelligence system that informs campaign execution, strengthens brand positioning, and enhances community resonance.

Key Deliverables (Tangible Outputs):

Layer 1 Competitor Research Report

• Benchmarking Cardano against Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and others.
• Analysis of media narratives, developer traction, and strategic differentiators.

Global Audience Segmentation & Messaging Framework

• Identification and profiling of key audience personas (developers, enterprises, investors, regulators, Catalyst participants).
• Behavioral, psychographic, and media sentiment mapping.
• Channel and narrative strategy recommendations.

Regional Trend Mapping Reports Across Priority Markets

• Perception testing and feedback from users and developers in the US, UK, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
• Insights into messaging resonance, engagement blockers, and ecosystem expectations.

Spokesperson Resonance and Media Impact Assessment

• Analysis of Cardano spokesperson visibility, tone, and trustworthiness.
• Benchmarking against ecosystem and industry peers.

Quarterly Brand Health Report (Baseline Edition)

• Share of Voice, Net Sentiment Score, Brand Recall Index, and Thematic Penetration metrics.
• Competitive positioning in earned media, social platforms, and search visibility.

Campaign Testing Report

• Validation of Cardano’s key narratives, value propositions, and messaging hypotheses.
• PR scenario testing and stress-test simulations to optimize future campaigns.

Insights-to-Execution Toolkit

• A strategic playbook linking insights to action: media toolkits, campaign timing recommendations, narrative scaffolds by region/audience.

Definition of Done (Target State for This Proposal):

• All research deliverables are completed, peer-reviewed, and shared with the Cardano Foundation and relevant teams.
• Strategic handover and knowledge transfer sessions are conducted to ensure usability and continuity.
• Cardano’s marketing and governance stakeholders are equipped with an actionable, evidence-based foundation to guide 2025 campaigns and communications.
• Success will be measured by the quality and usability of outputs, internal stakeholder satisfaction, and uptake of insights into campaign development.

• Month 1 (30% – USD$150,000; 300,000 ADA): Kickoff, methodology finalization, stakeholder alignment, initiation of competitor and audience research

• Month 2 (25% – USD$125,000; 250,000 ADA): Completion of competitor research; launch of regional trend mapping and media tracking

• Month 3 (20% – USD$100,000; 200,000 ADA): Preliminary audience segmentation insights; campaign message testing begins

• Month 4 (15% – USD$75,000; 150,000 ADA): Completion of regional trend mapping; brand health analysis and campaign testing insights

• Month 5 (10% – USD$50,000; 100,000 ADA): Final deliverables and recommendations; toolkit and knowledge transfer

To deliver the full scope of research, analysis, validation, and strategic outputs outlined in this proposal, we estimate the following team composition and timeline:

Estimated Duration: 5 months total, inclusive of stakeholder alignment, research execution, insight generation, and strategic handover.

• Month 1: Kickoff, methodology finalization, stakeholder alignment, initiation of competitor and audience research
• Month 2: Completion of competitor research; launch of regional trend mapping and media tracking
• Month 3: Preliminary audience segmentation insights; campaign message testing begins
• Month 4: Completion of regional trend mapping; brand health analysis and campaign testing insights
• Month 5: Final deliverables and recommendations; toolkit and knowledge transfer

Estimated Team Size: 10-12 personnel, with additional specialist support as needed.

Leadership & Strategic Oversight

• 2 Managing Directors (EMEA and US) – Senior leadership to ensure global consistency, senior stakeholder engagement, and regional alignment across key markets
• 1 Executive Director (Singapore/APAC) – Oversees project delivery across Asia Pacific and provides regional insights to guide regional trend mapping execution and audience analysis
• 2 Directors (Strategic Oversight) – Drives alignment with Cardano’s ecosystem-wide goals and ensures strategic integration with the 2025 marketing roadmap

Research & Execution

• 1 Senior Consultant / Research Lead (Market Intelligence & Methodology) – Designs and oversees competitor benchmarking, brand tracking, audience segmentation
• 2 Consultants (Communications & Project Manager) – Synthesizes research into actionable positioning frameworks and execution strategies. Coordinates workflow, timelines, and communications across all workstreams
• 3 Analysts (Media, Sentiment & Social Listening Tools) – Operate analytics dashboards and surface insight across digital and media ecosystems
• 1 Qualitative Research Specialist (Regional Trend Mapping & Stakeholder Testing) – Leads focus group design, facilitation, and narrative validation sessions

Wachsman has led high-impact market research and strategic positioning programs for some of the most prominent Layer 1 blockchain networks and digital asset platforms in the world.

Our experience lies in helping ecosystems navigate moments of transformation, with insights that not only inform communications, but drive adoption, perception shifts, and strategic clarity.

We have delivered:

• Global perception audits for a major Layer 1 blockchain protocol, combining sentiment analysis, focus groups, and earned media diagnostics to reshape the project’s narrative across priority regions. Our work helped identify misalignment between messaging and market expectations, and provided a roadmap to rebuild trust and relevance.
• Audience segmentation and persona mapping for leading Web3 infrastructure projects, uncovering how developers, institutions, regulators, and retail users engage with key narratives. These insights directly informed campaign strategy and regional activation.
• Competitive benchmarking and whitespace analysis for a high-growth Layer 1 ecosystem, detailing where and how its core differentiators could be sharpened against top-tier competitors. We mapped messaging overlaps across Ethereum, Solana, and Polkadot, and defined a unique positioning space that aligned with the protocol’s vision and technical roadmap.
• Brand health tracking and spokesperson resonance studies, using linguistic AI, social listening, and share-of-voice analysis to measure ecosystem traction and inform go-to-market timing.

These research programs have been pivotal to helping protocols regain narrative control, increase developer and partner engagement, and deliver more resonant, regionally attuned messaging. Our work ensures that communications strategies are not based on assumptions but on tested, real-time market signals.

This proposal is designed to deliver lasting value beyond the initial research and strategy development phase. Maintenance will be ensured through the following mechanisms:

Cardano Research Hub

Wachsman will create a dedicated Cardano Research Hub - a centralized, searchable, and user-friendly repository of insights, findings, and strategic recommendations. This resource would be accessible to relevant members of the Cardano community and ecosystem, empowering them to make informed communication and campaign decisions long after Wachsman’s engagement concludes.

Knowledge Transfer & Internal Enablement

All research outputs, including audience insights, messaging frameworks, campaign playbooks, and brand health dashboards, will be delivered in reusable, easily updatable formats. Wachsman will conduct handover sessions with Cardano’s internal teams (e.g., marketing, governance, ecosystem growth) to ensure continuity in use and application.

Integrated Brand Health Tracking

Quarterly brand health reports, once established, can be maintained and updated by Cardano’s internal team or external partners using the same methodology, ensuring continued visibility into narrative performance and sentiment trends.

Campaign Execution Alignment

The validated messaging architecture and audience segmentation models will directly inform future campaign planning, allowing Cardano to update and adapt its strategies as the ecosystem evolves.

Optional Ongoing Support

Wachsman can be retained post-project as a strategic advisor to support campaign optimization, track market shifts, and provide ad hoc updates to research deliverables, ensuring Cardano’s communications remain data-driven and responsive.

The success of this proposal depends on the following key internal and external factors:

Stakeholder Alignment (Internal)

Timely access to key stakeholders within the Cardano ecosystem, including members of the growth and marketing committee (GMC), governance leads (GPC), and relevant technical spokespeople, to align on objectives, target audiences, and desired outcomes. Also subjected to approval and feedback on messaging hypotheses, research questions, and campaign validation themes.

Data Access & Ecosystem Context (Internal)

Access to existing Cardano ecosystem data (e.g., prior campaign results, user demographics, developer engagement reports, and market performance metrics) to inform segmentation and benchmarking. Ongoing insights from Catalyst and ecosystem partners to ensure alignment with evolving community priorities.

Participant Recruitment (External)

Collaboration with ecosystem partners, community moderators, and regional ambassadors to facilitate regional trend mapping and audience panel recruitment across target markets (US, UK, Africa, Southeast Asia).

Research Tooling & Platform Support (External)

Licensing or access to enterprise-grade media analytics, social listening, and survey platforms, either via Wachsman’s proprietary tools or supplemented by Cardano, where appropriate.

Execution Collaboration (Internal)

Coordination with Cardano’s global marketing teams to ensure seamless integration of research outputs into live campaign planning, brand positioning, and media outreach.