How do you measure brand awareness? It’s certainly either bullshit or trivial to measure.
There's a spectrum of marketing that ranges from "how can I communicate the existence of my cheese spray product to fans of Cheese Whiz," to "how can I get every American to spray cheese wiz directly into their mouths three times a day as a meal substitute." Techniques for doing the first are about as well tested as Newton's laws, but techniques for doing the second are virtually guaranteed to be a scam where you're the mark.
Brands want to appear on that list of names, and the closer to the top ("top of mind") the better. Of course, for most brands the aspiration to be top of mind is ludicrous since there can be only one. For UK womenswear that one is Next and, barring the company suddenly going under (possible but not likely), it ain't changing any time soon.
Prompted awareness, when you're presented with a list of brands and asked a question to elicit your awareness of them, is much less valuable because if you see anything often enough on the high street you're going to remember it when prompted.
I actively avoid seeing them. I use ad-blockers, and have for over a decade. When I commonly read print media, I used to go through first and tear out all the ads, seeing them as little as possible, and pasting blank paper over the ones that had desired text on the other side.
When driving, I avoid looking at billboards, just as I avoid looking at oncoming lights at night.
I also don't trust news coverage. I especially don't trust favorable news coverage, because that's often advertorial. That does create bias I know. And if I'm actively interested in something, I read a variety of media, from different countries.
To each his or her own, I guess. Do you close your eyes when venturing outside as well? Also, as I am sure you are aware, much of what you read has been pitched and influenced by PR agencies: that’s what they do. When you read about a product in some publication, that product didn’t just randomly find itself as part of a story, a PR firm helped get it there. I might suggest that you might be a bit naïve about how advertising, media and PR work. You can’t escape it even if you think you are.
I don 't close my eyes outside, no. But I do trash ads, whenever I can. Back in the hardcore days, I carried stickers with moisture-catalyzed adhesive. Once those suckers cured, sand-blasting was the only option. Now I just carry black markers ;)