Chinese tech company Tencent is getting a flurry of internet attention after they revealed a series of Bob Dylan potato chip bags in eight different “flavors.” To be clear, the bags don’t contain chips flavored like “Blowin’ in the Wind”—there aren’t actually any chips in the bags at all. Instead, it’s an elaborate (and bizarre) marketing strategy being used to sell books of Bob Dylan lyrics, translated into Chinese for the first time. According to Prefix Magazine, the publisher brought in 15 of China’s most esteemed poets and musicians to translate “Bob Dylan: The Lyrics (1961–2012).” The translated lyrics were divided into eight individual pocket-sized books that come inexplicably packaged in their own unique chip bag.
Joanna Fantozzi for The Daily Meal read the gesture as a metaphorical nod to the Nobel prize winner’s embrace of the popular traditions in folk music: “The company hopes to symbolically emphasize the lyrics’ accessibility by allowing people to enjoy them even more than one might enjoy getting a bag of potato chips from a vending machine.” Check out more of these custom made potato chip bags on the publisher’s website.
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