I'm interested to know whether google advertises in the US? I hear a lot of people saying "google market themselves well". In the UK they don't, they don't run any ads whatsoever. On the other hand eBay run a number of large scale tv advertising campaigns. Notting
Google runs ads via their own Adsense network. They also market themselves well via partnerships with other products, such as Firefox and Opera. In the past they've been reluctant to spend money on traditional media advertising since they're already VERY successful, but they've recently tested TV ads.
As far as I know, I don't recall Google EVER having done a major airtime campaign. I think for the most part they've lucked out when it came to fame with the average people; movies and TV shows just started using their name ("I googled this/that/him") and next thing you know -- BAM, they're in the mainstream as a frakkin' verb. And of course, having brilliant businessmen at the helm when it came to Adsense doesn't hurt.
Ive been noticing quite a few new Ask ads on tv lately as well. You would think google would still advertise on tv, people like ebay are just as known as google are yet they are always advertising, same goes for other major brands.
Ask launched a major campaign last year, but it didn't do anything. They're starting again this year. It's really a mystery how Google manages to become such a part of the lexicon while doing very little to encourage it.
Asks ads lately i don't see how they get any benefit from them, these are the two i see all the time now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFOntzCxjNE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCgbTZkkcUI&NR=1. Id of though people would be like WTF when they get to the Ask site after seeing them ads.