The gold standard for target group segmentation.

Sinus-Milieus

The Sinus-Milieus are a social model and are considered the gold standard of psychographic target group segmentation in the German-speaking market (in this case Austria). This model arranges people with similar values, lifestyle and comparable social situation. The Transition between milieus are fluid.

The Sinus-Milieus illustrate the motivations behind the various lifestyles in our society.

Conservatives 5 %
The older, structurally conservative elite: Strongly characterized by Christian ethics, high estimation of education and culture. Skeptical towards current social development.
Demographic info:
Age: 60+
Men are Academic schooled
Woman are housewifes
Retired
2 person household

Established 8 %
Strongly focused on status, exclusiveness,
responsibility and leadership

Demographic info:
age between 40 – 60
high educational level
Senior servants and self-employed and freelancer
High income
Life in a 3 or more household

Performers 8%
Flexible and globally orientated. Individual performance, efficiency and success have top-priority; competent in business and IT.
Demographic info:
Age: under 30
Most of them are still in school
Education level is high
Good income

Digital individualists 9%
Individual, networking, digital avant-garde.
Mentally and geographically worldwide mobile, cross-linked online and offline, permanently looking for new experiences
Demographic info:
Age: Under 35
small self-employed or freelancers
trainees, pupils and students without income is high.
Net household income is still above average. Thanks to good situated parents.

A lot of singles

Adaptive-Navigators 12%
The young pragmatic middle stratum. Strong desire for anchorage, membership, security, performance-orientation but also the wish for fun and entertainment

Demographic info:
Age 30-60
Personal households
Child friendly
Middle-income employees, civil servants or
skilled workers

Post-materialist 10 %
Open-minded social critics. Variated aspects of culture; cosmopolitan orientation, but critical towards globalization; socially engaged.

Demographic info:

Age: begin 30
after school they work in qualified and leading jobs.
high income
big households with kids

Modern Mainstreamers %
Adaptive mainstream. Seeking professional and social establishment, secure and harmonic circumstances, support and orientation, peace and a slow pace.

Demographic info:
Above 50
Simple educated
Jobs in administration, business and culture
Employed and unemployed

Traditionals 12 %
Emphasizing on security, order and stability. Rooted in the old pretty bourgeois world, in the traditional blue collar culture or in the rural milieu

Demographic info:
65+ (Boomers)
A lot of women in this milieu
A lot of traditional jobs (skilled worker/ farmers)

Consumption Oriented 8%

Materialistic lower class striving for participation. Sense of discrimination. Striving to stay connected with the consumption standards of the middle class.

Demographic info:
Younger and middle age group to 50, focus under 30
Simple to medium education.
Students and trainees are high.
Middle rage income

Consumer Hedonistic Milieu 8%
The modern lower middle class, living for the excitement of the moment. Seeking fun and amusement; rejection of traditional standards and conventions.

Demographic info:
Wide ranch up to 60
Most completed elementary school or secondary school.
Lower income.
Social disadvantages such as unemployment, illness or incomplete family often make the situation even more difficult

Sources:
The gold standard for target group segmentation. (2023). https://www.sinus-institut.de/. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.sinus-institut.de/en/sinus-milieus
Sinus-Milieus® Austria. (2018). https://www.sinus-institut.de/. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.sinus-institut.de/en/sinus-milieus/sinus-milieus-oesterreich
– PDF Sinus milieus (2009)