1. A computer implemented method for selecting a targeted advertisement to be presented to a consumer by determining similarities between a profile of the consumer which is generated in part from purchase records of the consumer and a profile for each of a plurality of advertisements, wherein the profile for each advertisement identifies discretionary characteristics of an intended target market of the advertisement, the method comprising: receiving the consumer profile; receiving the plurality of advertisement profiles; comparing each advertisement profile with the consumer profile to determine a correlation value between each advertisement profile and the consumer profile; and selecting a targeted advertisement to be presented to a particular consumer based on correlation values.