Advertisement selection system supporting discretionary target market characteristics

A system for determining if an advertisement is applicable to a consumer based on similarities between a consumer profile associated with the consumer and an advertisement profile associated with the advertisement, the system comprising:

• means for retrieving transaction records, wherein the transaction records include an inventory of recorded transactions of the consumer;
• means for generating the consumer profile based at least in part on the transaction records and heuristic rules associated with at least some subset of the recorded transactions within the transaction records, wherein the heuristic rules define a probabilistic measure of at least one discretionary characteristic of the consumer not directly represented in the transaction records and the consumer profile identifies ax least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer that is not directly represented in the transaction records;
• means for retrieving an advertisement profile associated with an advertisement, wherein the advertisement profile identifies at least one discretionary characteristic of an intended market for the advertisement;
• and
• means for correlating the consumer profile with the advertisement profile to determine the applicability of the advertisement to the consumer based on similarities of the at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer with the at least one discretionary characteristic for the intended market for the advertisement.

A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium for determining if an advertisement is applicable to a consumer based on similarities between a consumer profile associated with the consumer and an advertisement profile associated with the advertisement, the computer program comprising:

• a source code segment for retrieving transaction records, wherein the transaction records include an inventory of recorded transactions of the consumer;
• a source code segment for generating the consumer profile based at least in part on the transaction records and heuristic rules associated with at least some subset of the recorded transactions within the transaction records, wherein the heuristic rules define a probabilistic measure of at least one discretionary characteristic of the consumer not directly represented in the transaction records and the consumer profile identifies at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer that is not directly represented in the transaction records;
• a source code segment for retrieving an advertisement profile associated with an advertisement, wherein the advertisement profile identifies at least one discretionary characteristic of an intended market for the advertisement;
• and
• a source code segment for correlating the consumer profile with the advertisement profile to determine the applicability of the advertisement to the consumer based on similarities of the at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer with the at least one discretionary characteristic for the intended market for the advertisement.

A method for identifying consumers to be targeted with an advertisement, the method comprising:

• retrieving transaction records, wherein the transaction records include an inventory of transactions recorded for a plurality of consumers and identifies which of the recorded transactions are associated with which of the plurality of consumers;
• generating a consumer profile for at least a subset of the plurality of consumers identified in the transaction records, wherein each consumer profile is based at least in part on the recorded transactions associated with the consumer and heuristic rules associated with at least some subset of the recorded transactions associated with the consumer, wherein the heuristic rules define a probabilistic measure of at least one discretionary characteristic of the consumer not directly represented in the transaction records and the consumer profile identifies at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer that is not directly represented in the transaction records;
• retrieving an advertisement profile associated with the advertisement, wherein the advertisement profile identifies at least one discretionary characteristic of an intended market for the advertisement;
• and
• identifying a set of consumers to receive the advertisement by correlating the advertisement profile with at least a subset of the consumer profiles.

A system for identifying consumers to be targeted with an advertisement, the system comprising:

• means for retrieving transaction records, wherein the transaction records include an inventory of transactions recorded for a plurality of consumers and identifies which of the recorded transactions are associated with which of the plurality of consumers;
• means for generating a consumer profile for at least a subset of the plurality of consumers identified in the transaction records, wherein each consumer profile is based at least in part on the recorded transactions associated with the consumer and heuristic rules associated with at least some subset of the recorded transactions associated with the consumer, wherein the heuristic rules define a probabilistic measure of at least one discretionary characteristic of the consumer not directly represented in the transaction records and the consumer profile identifies at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer that is not directly represented in the transaction records;
• means for retrieving an advertisement profile associated with the advertisement, wherein the advertisement profile identifies at least one discretionary characteristic of an intended market forte advertisement;
• and
• means for identifying a set of consumers to receive the advertisement by correlating the advertisement profile with at least a subset of the consumer profiles.

A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium for identifying consumers to be targeted with an advertisement the computer program comprising:

• a source code segment for retrieving transaction records, wherein the transaction records include an inventory of transactions recorded for a plurality of consumers and identifies which of the recorded transactions are associated with which of the plurality of consumers;
• a source code segment for generating a consumer profile for at least a subset of the plurality of consumers identified in the transaction records, wherein each consumer profile is based at least in part on the recorded transactions associated with the consumer and heuristic rules associated with at least some subset of the recorded transactions associated with the consumer, wherein the heuristic rules define a probabilistic measure of at least one discretionary characteristic of the consumer not directly represented in the transaction records and the consumer profile identifies at least one probabilistic discretionary characteristic of the consumer that is not directly represented in the transaction records;
• a source code segment for retrieving an advertisement profile associated with the advertisement, wherein the advertisement profile identifies at least one discretionary characteristic of an intended market for the advertisement;
• and
• a source code segment for identifying a set of consumers to receive the advertisement by correlating the advertisement profile with at least a subset of the consumer profiles.