Last year, Microsoft released some research finding that the average attention span for a goldfish is about nine seconds and that for people of the smartphone era, it’s even less than that at eight seconds. It’s somewhat troubling, but not all that surprising when you think about all the content being blasted at you every second from a device that you keep close by at all times.

While marketers have more tools in their arsenals than ever, cutting through the noise (not to mention the content of substance) is no easy deed. Last fall, Wyzowl put together this infographic that takes this goldfish to human comparison into consideration and provides some advice on how to overcome the issue.

While the infographic has been out there since October, it has been popping up in a few places in recent days, bringing it to our attention (I first saw it at Social Media Today).

The eight-second rule for grabbing attention in videos is particularly interesting this week as Google just introduced a new six-second, unskippable video ad format.

Images via iStock, Wyzowl