在今日高競爭的消費市場中，消費者的喜好，以及產品的關鍵屬性，已經變的多樣化；由於能夠滿足消費者期望的企業品牌產品，將得以生存及持續成長，否則將衰敗並進而退出市場。因此，企業要有成功的行銷策略，必須全盤了解產品市場結構，以及市場的競爭形態。
企業有時候為了從其競爭者中，吸引一些消費者購買其品牌產品，因此會提供一些誘因，以使其競爭品牌產品之消費者，產生消費轉移行為。因此，企業除了需了解到市場的變動，並且需要設計規劃出適合企業本身的行銷策略，特別是企業品牌產品的促銷活動規劃，以期保有品牌產品的舊消費者，進而吸引新消費者。在促銷活動的規劃問題中，對於促銷期間的研究，審視現有的文獻資料裡面，能提供有用的計算工具或模式者並不多見，使得行銷人員進行促銷活動期間規劃時，常是依循經驗法則。有鑒於此，本文整合了馬可夫模式，利用熵概念以及擴散理論，對於所欲探討的促銷活動問題，進行模式推導，並獲得解決方法。此外，文中使用田口方法，對於模式中的不確定參數，同時探討多個參數值變動情形，並據此推得出，有利企業品牌產品施行促銷活動的促銷期間。另外，針對模式所使適用的不同情境，文中使用實例說明求解的過程，以得到兩可替代產品的最佳促銷期間。

In today’s highly competitive markets, customer preferences and key attributes of products have become so diverse that only firms meeting these customer expectations will prosper and grow. Hence, the design of successful marketing strategies requires a thorough understanding of the structure of the product markets and the patterns of competition within those markets.
Firms sometimes try to lure customers from their competitors by offering inducements to switching. They need to realize how the market will change and how to shape marketing strategies, especially for promotion activities, to retain old customers and poach new customers. There are few studies that provide a useful tool or model to determine the promotion duration during the transition state of customers’ switching between different brands. This implies that marketing managers usually decide the promotion duration based on their past experiences. The study integrates the Markov chain, entropy, and diffusion theory to model the problem and find a solution. Furthermore, the Taguchi method is used to capture the uncertain parameters of the model and to determine the number of periods required to reach the steady state of the customers’ transition. Numerical examples are used to illustrate the solution procedure and how the model determines optimal promotion duration.

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