In December $2015,$ Cynthia Wright, a vice$-$president at Skyrose Marketing Agency $($Skyrose$),$ had just finished reviewing a summary of her team's performance for the past year. As head of the group responsible for beverage industry clients, she had led her team of four associates to achieve excellent results in revenue generation and client satisfaction. Despite these successes, she was determined to develop a plan for the upcoming year that would enable her to better manage her team while still delivering results. Wright noted that in the past year, her team's quality of life had suffered as she worked to grow her client book, particularly due to the cyclical nature of the marketing business. Around peak times, such as the holidays, her team members became overwhelmed both from completing projects for existing clients and generating new clients by responding to numerous requests for proposals. Wright was eager to devise a method for smoothing out the workload between peak and quiet periods of the year by better forecasting her clients' needs ahead of time. Specifically, she was planning to implement the new technique Google Trends, a database of search trends that spanned the past decade and that could be used to proxy consumer interest in different products. Wright believed that by forecasting consumer interest, she could predict demand from her clients, whom she anticipated would engage her firm to capture this consumer interest. As a result, Wright would be able to address two key problems. First, staffing decisions and firm resource allocation could be predicted ahead of time, giving her team members time to prepare for upcoming projects. Second, Wright could deliver better results for her clients by anticipating the timing of consumer demand and developing marketing plans around these timelines. Wright planned to use the upcoming calendar year as a trial for the Google Trends approach for forecasting demand. To test its efficacy, she would assess its influence on three key clients: Vintage Vino, On The Rocks Whiskey, and Downtown Brew Co$.$

THE BEVERAGE CLIENTS GROUP

Skyrose's staff members consisted of four associates plus Wright. Each associate had several years o experience in marketing or advertising. They were all well$-$versed in the beverage products marketing market segment. The team's work could be generally divided into two functions: $(1)$ gaining new business by networking and responding to requests for proposals from potential new clients, and $(2)$ maintaining recurring business by completing projects for existing clientsAlthough many ongoing projects had to be completed under a time$-$sensitive schedule, some functions such as networking, project preparation, and relationship building with old clients could be completed at any time throughout the year. Wright compiled all employee work hours from the previous year $($see Exhibit $1).$

CLIENTS Wright was planning to implement this initiative with three key companies: two current clients $($Vintage Vino and On The Rocks Whiskey$)$ and one prospective new client $($Downtown Brew Co$)$ Vintage Vino, a Canadian wine producer and distributor, had been working with Skyrose for the previous three yearsAs a leader in the wine market segment, the company was planning the release of a new white wine in the upcoming year. However, the company was unsure when exactly to release the new product to maximize sales. On The Rocks Whiskey was a Vancouver$-$based distributor of whiskey that worked closely with producers throughout the country to source the best products for consumersThe company had seen incredible success in sales in the previous year and credited this growth partially to the work of Wright and her team. As a loyal client, On The Rocks Whiskey was likely to seek direction from Skyrose on upcoming industry and consumer trends. Downtown Brew Co$.$ was a rising star in the craft beer industry. As Wright was recently informed, the company was planning to expand its presence from Ontario to various other Canadian provincesThe company was not currently a Skyrose client, but Wright had a strong desire to win Downtown Brew Co$.\text{'}$s businessThe company was experiencing exponential growth and would likely be looking for a marketing agency in the upcoming year.

GOOGLE TRENDS Google Trends was a database that tracked search queries and the relative popularity of queries over t The online platform contained data from $2004$ onwardIt contained search trends that could be segmente geography and timedown to minute$-$by$-$minute results $($see Exhibit $2)$A specific period of Google Tr data could be exported, with search data scaled relative to the highest search volume within that time fra The Google Trends database had shown great promise for numerous applications in the pastIt was even to make predictions about influenza outbreaks, in an attempt to slow the spread of the flu virus$\mathrm{.}2$ Although Wright had never personally used Google Trendsshe had read about the impressive applicatio ofthistool$1$