Graham Harding started life in rural Essex before grabbing a few glittering prizes in Cambridge. His inability to read medieval Latin and a vague desire to do something useful ended thoughts of academic life. He therefore launched himself on the jobs market as a publisher and spent several happy years learning about the less sophisticated side of marketing.

Repositioning as a fully fledged marketing man was the logical next step. A period of line extension and a desire for higher penetration took him to The Value Engineers, a successful and highly individual Marketing Consultancy.

The Bluffer's Guide to Marketing is his first venture into print under his own name. The other names were much more prestigious but he is not at liberty to reveal them. His ambition is to write a book that will make real money.

Paul Walton was conceived in Walsall, test marketed at Brasenose College, Oxford, and launched at a Paddington advertising agency.

His first products included Swedish cars, German lager and British Intelligence. Assigned to a food account he early distinguished himself in new product development by recommending that the clients' starch-reduced rolls should be relaunched as loft insulation materials.

After ten years of developing products for other people, and a major awayday with himself, he finally launched his own product: The Value Engineers. A keen student of history, his Mastermind specialist subject would be; 'The Cooking Sauce Market - 1974 to the present day'.

Marketing activity involves taking something simple and obvious and packaging it to go. This is a skill that all good bluffers quickly learn.
The idea of marketing itself is no exception. In lay terms the marketing concept means that you stand a better chance of selling something if you understand whether and why someone wants it in the first place.
But to the marketing people, The Marketing Concept is very serious stuff, as important as The Meaning of Life. In fact to many successful marketers it is the meaning of life and the best bluffers will show a reverence towards it.
Bluffer's Guides is a series of snappy little books containing facts, jargon, and all you need to know for instant expertise.

Perceived demand
In lay terms the marketing concept means that you stand a better chance of flogging something if you understand whether and why someone wants it in the first place.

Presentation
The whole area of successful presentation is bluff. Expensive courses on presentation put it slightly differently, but that's what they mean.

Decentralisation
As young marketing trainees discover - life is not pure Kostler and there are many companies where marketing is neither the centre of the universe nor the centre of the 'organisational wheel'. In fact there are many companies where the motorcycle couriers are more 'integrated' than the marketing department.

Marketing plans
Just as all politicians have to face election from time to time, marketeers have to get through marketing plans. In fact these activities are very similar - both involve rehashing the past and over-promising the future.