- Andrew McMains

NEW YORK Domenico Vitale, former chief strategy officer at Lowe in New York, is launching a collective of strategic and creative talent known as People Ideas & Culture.

The New York-based operation will offer clients access to a pool of talent in advertising, fashion, music, content and Web creation, blogging, events and public relations. Some of it will be in-house, but PI&C will also tap outsiders when needed.

PI&C will partner with New York design shop Bond to service clients. Bond, headed by director of design Joe Doucet, has taken a minority stake in PI&C and PI&C, led by chief idea architect Vitale, has taken a minority stake in Bond, Vitale said.

Doucet, a former colleague of Vitale from their years at MDC Partners' Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners in New York, launched Bond last year. The shop designs everything from packaging and logos to Web sites and journals. The two shops will share offices, resources and talent, with Bond focusing on its "upstream offering," and PI&C delivering strategic ideas and communication, according to PI&C.

PI&C is "about providing brands around the world with innovative ideas that are driven by strategic needs rather than by what limitations of agency structure dictate," said Vitale, who left Interpublic Group's Lowe last month after 20 months there. "Clients need value right now with the economy being where it is. It's now more than ever."

Vitale declined to name the shop's initial clients, but said it was working on a "new technology for the children's market" and a "new luxury brand in the U.S. from Italy."

Before Lowe, Vitale was head of brand strategy and a managing partner at Kirshenbaum Bond. He also has worked at WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather in New York and Havas' Fuel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.