• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, June 17, 2019

Can “microstep habit-stacking” make you happier? Arianna Huffington and Procter & Gamble are going to try to convince you it  can.

Today at  the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the huge consumer packaged goods marketer announced a “groundbreaking partnership” with Arianna Huffington’s behavior change tech company Thrive Global.

Thrive will provide content for “both social media marketing campaigns and new internet-connected consumer health devices,” according to Fortune magazine.

For example, Oral-B Sense, a Wi-Fi-enabled smart toothbrushing system that provides consumers real-time feedback on their brushing habits, will launch this fall — with Thrive content embedded in Oral-B Sense’s feedback loop, giving consumers reminders to add habits like a gratitude practice to their morning and evening toothbrush routine.

“Great brands are habits for their consumers -- and P&G’s brands are daily habits for up to five billion consumers around the world,” Huffington explained in a press release.

“Neuroscience tells us that habit-stacking is the fastest way to build a new habit so that it becomes sustainable. And the daily habits consumers already have -- brushing their teeth, washing their hair, changing diapers -- give us the opportunity to introduce new habits that don’t require any additional time,” she explained further to Fortune.

Besides Oral B, Thrive’s Global Behavior Change Brand Studio  will collaborate with five other P&G brands: Crest, Pampers, Venus, Secret and Pantene.

But obviously P&G has lots of products on which to stack some new habits.

Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer for P&G, told Fortune, “The habits for the products we provide is quite high; 90% use deodorant, many people brush their teeth twice a day. Through content we’re creating with Thrive, they’ll be able to learn these microsteps and use them in the everyday with our products.”

At the Cannes event, the company proclaimed it wants to embrace “the convergence of advertising, journalism, filmmaking, music, comedy, and technology.”

Pritchard, addressing the crowd at the festival said, “There are vast sources of creativity available, and today P&G is taking action to merge the ad world with other creative worlds though partnerships that embrace humanity and broaden our view of what advertising could be.”

The company is developing a new alliance with musician John Legend that will “integrate several genres to explore various aspects of humanity and the human experience -- such as parenthood, modern masculinity, music and social justice -- with P&G and its Pampers, Gillette and SK-II brands.”

P&G also said it had new partnerships with tech companies that already helped them launch products and experiences  like Olay Skin Advisor, SK-II FutureX Smart Store, My Black is Beautiful. The Cincinnati-based P&G, in addition, announced a new alliance with GLAAD.