I have a few hunches about why Utada didn't market so well in 2004.
From the interview, she clearly wasn't feeling the way things ran when she worked with Timbaland and because, like she said, she has no say when and where an album releases, she had to release this one. But because she wasn't so confident about it, I think she ended up trying to market it as least as possible. Because if she wanted to test the waters with Exodus, I think she would have done a much better job at putting herself out there- especially if she was under Island Records and being helped by Timbaland.
Now though, she seems much more confident and willing to put herself out there. I know in Japan, she's used to putting anything out and having people market for her or her stuff market itself. I hope she doesn't use the same strategy here because of course she needs to do a lot of self promotion to get herself noticed.
-O_sLaVe