To be fair, their marketing spend compared to their competitors was WAY higher than Apple's was compared to MS.
Google did spend a lot of dough trying to roll this out.
Google's ability to reach into so many distinct markets is pretty remarkable to me. I think we can't ignore the mountains of data they have on consumer buying patterns though. They've probably collected more business intelligence than any other company prior. That's quite the competitive advantage to be allowed.
Where exactly did Google spend all this money? I see DRIOD and iPhone commercials nightly and have yet to see Nexus One commercial. I also don't see any Nexus One advertising in stores or anywhere else a typical consumer might go looking for a phone.
Google did some web advertising and had some business news sites cover the phone because well they are Google. I have yet to see any sort of advertising from them that even comes close to the iPhone or DROID (which incidentally has also done very well).