Don’t Like - Loud Loading Screen Noises

There’s an idea out there called sonic branding and you’ve certainly heard it in jingles and other trademarked sounds. It’s great idea for the radio, TV, supermarket, the beach in Australia, the subway and loads of other places. But you know where it doesn’t make much sense? The loading screens of Hulu and Netflix on my TV. Sonic branding is good way to remind people of something they haven’t deliberately chosen on the remote they’re holding in their hand. Unfortunately, when you fire up these apps you get hit with a curtailed version of the Dolby THX sound that isn’t remotely as a fun and exciting. And they wouldn’t be so annoying if they weren’t so much louder than the shows these services host. From a user experience perspective, this is what happens: 1) You watch TV the night before at a decent volume. 2) You turn off your TV when you’re done. 3) You turn the TV back on ready to watch new things. 4) You open your app of choice and then 5) BAM! You get with a blast of noise that you didn’t want at all. 6) You sit startled in your chair wondering why it was so loud. Now mind you, I like loud stuff. I like concerts, parties, cars, loud music in cars, you name it. But I’ll never like having sonic branding slammed into my ears because a Forrester report from 2018 suggests that sonic branding provides a 13.7x increase in brand loyalty among people ages 18 - 34. Well, as a 30 year old, I can attest that we don’t get more loyal because of the sonic branding. We just want to watch Frasier and Columbo until it’s time to sleep.