“Años Viejos” exist in Ecuador since its foundation as a country. The "Años Viejos" are Paper – made dolls representing bad things from

The past year and they are normally made with newspapers. Ecuadorians burn the Años Viejos traditionally on New Year’s Eve. Even companies and institutions burn their own Años Viejos.

At the end of a 2016 filled with bad news, El Universo (Ecuador´s leading newspaper, decided to establish Ecuador´s biggest problems by checking its database. 9 problems, 9 words were chosen to create the Burning Words.

We placed them in the main streets of the city where Años viejos are sold between Christmas and New years eve. During that week streets are filled by informal merchants that sell Años viejos of every shape and size... but this year they also displayed the Burning Words. Companies also burn "Años viejos". Even companies joined the campaign.

We chose 9 problems to make 9 types of Burning Words: Earthquake, Cancer, Dengue, Regionalism, Abuse, Femicide, Prejudice, Malnutrition and Violence.

As any "Año Viejo" the Burning Words were made by artisans that used the same technique to make the structure of the paper doll and covering it with previously selected negative news related to the problems that were identified analysing the newspaper database

The timeline was the following:

El Universo Newspaper Database Analisis

We used the database determine the country´s most important problems.

01/11/2016

15/11/2016

Design and Creation of the Burning Words

We created paper doll words that represented the problems we wanted to leave behind: Burning Words

05/12/2016

20/12/2016

Distribution of the Burning Words

We placed the "Burning Words" all over the city.

21/12/2016

26/12/2016

Burning the Words

A dozen companies and hundreds of people acquired and burned the Burning Words on New Years Eve.

29/12/2016

31/12/2016

The Burning Words were exposed and displayed in 20 locations in the main streets and avenues of Guayaquil in a week (between Christmas and New Years Eve) that has an increased transit of shoppers that are searching and buying regular "Años Viejos".

Burning Word got exposed to a daily average of 300.000 people during that week.

An awareness test shows and increased consideration of El Universo as a trusted source of news in Guayaquil.