Zig, for better or worse, have a strong messaging and isn’t afraid of making big claims. That they don’t always pan out (”faster than C”, ”colorless async” etc), doesn’t matter. Zig was the first C alternative to spring from the interest Jon Blow ignited with his language dev and that marketing lead has been superbly well maintained by Andrew.

Odin and C3 has at least a magnitude fewer people knowing about them. More modest claims, less marketing potential.

So for D, it was to my memory never sold as a silver bullet either. A better C++ certainly, but with enough humility to not market itself as some game changer.

Compare Zig, V and Rust marketing with D’s and you’ll see what I mean.