I recently started following Ted Bawno on Twitter. Aside from being a prolific Twitterer (so much so, in fact, that I briefly consider unfollowing him daily), Bawno — who may or may not be the alter ego of NYC journalist, former Vibe music editor, and Ego Trip founder Sacha Jenkins — was the publisher of the now defunct Ego Trip magazine, “The Arrogant Voice of Musical Truth,” which launched in 1994 and folded after the publication of its fourth anniversary / farewell issue in 1998. Since the magazine’s closure, the Ego Trip crew has released two books, Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists and Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism, and produced the VH1 programs, Ego Trip’s The (White) Raper Show and Ego Trips Miss Rap Supreme.
Anyway, Bawno mentioned on Twitter not long ago that he was planning to bring back the print edition of Ego Trip, which would be dope. In addition to a unique and intelligently irreverent editorial voice, the magazine always boasted really interesting and artistic yet functional design, right down to the house ads. And they were damn good house ads — simple, eye catching, culturally relevant, whip smart.
Unlike most magazines’ house ads, which are basically just boring subscription pitches featuring a couple of past magazine covers, a rate discount and (maybe) some slick or catchy marketing copy, Ego Trip‘s were brand defining without actually making a sales pitch, and were more impactful than just about any house ad campaign I’ve seen since. What these house ads lacked in directly measurable ROI potential (no call-to-action message tied to user revenue), they more than made up for in memorable brand recognition. I’m not going to remember a subscription pitch I get from, say, Maxim — just another generic sweaty hot chick in a biki, offering me 70% off the regular newsstand rate of a magazine I couldn’t care less about — but I sure as hell remember most of Ego Trip‘s house ads, 11 years after the magazine folded (the one featuring the image of Reggie Jackson walking off the field for the last time, tipping his cap to the crowd, under the caption “Bow down to a player that’s greater than you.” has always been my favorite).
The last issue of Ego Trip (cover above) was full of house ads, and reading of Bawno’s intention to reanimate the magazine got me thinking about them, so I dug that issue out of my own little magazine archive and did some scanning. The ads themselves are a bit grainy (note the difference in resolution quality of the copy over the images) and my scanner is a few years old, and not of the highest quality, so…it is what it is. With the exception of the “The ghetto’s trying to kill us.” and “We get lifted.” ads, these are all full-page or two-page ads. They’re all pretty brilliant…
I can’t imagine Ego Trip in 2010. I’m sure it’d be awesome, but I would be very curious to see where they took it.
The Reggie Jackson one is definietly my favorite, so much so I made a poster of it. It was my Virgin Mary in college.