1. A computer implemented method of identifying at least one consumer to be the target of an advertisement, the method comprising: (a) accessing, by a computer, a plurality of consumer transaction records corresponding to a plurality of consumers and accessing demographic information records corresponding to the plurality of consumers; (b) retrieving heuristic rules that associate consumer transactions with consumer characteristics, wherein said heuristic rules have been pre-defined prior to accessing said plurality of consumer transaction records and wherein said pre-defined heuristic rules have been developed based on at least one psychological or sociological study; (c) retrieving at least one target consumer characteristic from an advertiser that has been selected at the discretion of the advertiser; (d) applying said pre-defined heuristic rules to said plurality of consumer transaction records to generate inferred transaction characteristics of the plurality of consumers; (e) generating, by a computer, inferred consumer characteristics of the plurality of consumers by associating the inferred transaction characteristics with the demographic information records; (f) selecting at least one target consumer from the plurality of consumers by correlating the inferred consumer characteristics with the at least one target consumer characteristic selected at the discretion of the advertiser; and (g) transmitting an advertisement associated with the advertiser to the at least one target consumer.