Popularising an idea isn't accomplished 100% by the first person who tries. I love the Mars Direct plan and I even travelled to see Zubrin at a Mars Society convention, but the man is absolutely shit at PR.
There's definitely some bad with MarsOne, maybe it's mostly bad. But saying it's all bad is simplistic and ignorant of how public awareness is raised.
Sure, but I’ve seen news clips and Discovery channel specials and a bunch of other media. Most of them these days mention Elon, many many talk to or about Zubrin and their experiments (IIRC they just did a new one last fall?). If they dig deep enough they might even get Kim Stanley Robinson to answer a couple questions.
But I’ve never heard them talk about Mars One. Which makes me believe there’s a bubble and I’m not the one inside of it.