At the start of the day, the DBA said they would visit each group, and then return again later to have a much more focused discussion on what we had done and the direction we were taking the project.
The initial crit didn't go great as it made us realise our idea didn't cut very deep at all, and maybe needed a rethink. The idea was too one dimensional and not very strong.
As a group we decided we would go back to square one.
We decided to do a word brain storm focusing on the name - Capital North to see if this sparked anything.
Unfortunately this wasn't overly successful. We then decided to try and think about what made the North different to the South. After looking at the brief bit more, it seems clear that it's not about competing the North vs the South, it's more about the North working as the 'London's brother'.
It turned out this too wasn't really getting us anywhere, so then decided to think about the positive attributes of the North of England. 
This then lead us to start thinking about what Capital North is - a team of cities. 
We then raised a few conceptual questions that needed answering....
What is the purpose of Capital North as a brand? - to present the North in a different perspective? We were really drawn to this as a focus because it allowed a lot of room for design possibility and visuals. 
Finally we briefly explored the audience for this project, to narrow down our ideas slightly. 
We then discussed our new thoughts with one of the guys from DBA.
This made us realise that the idea of 'looking at things from a different perspective' didn't communicate as positive, as it connotes that the north is normally seen in a negative light. It is also telling the audience 'We aren't as bad as you think', and this isn't really a good direction to be taking. Furthermore, our audience is mostly northerners, not southerners moving to the north. Therefore most are aware of the other main cities. 
Looking back to the positives we had brainstormed, we realised that these were just things that the North has; we needed to think about what made them better than anywhere else.
Chosen Concept
We then looked back to the idea of a team, and started thinking about what was the positives of being a team. This then led us to the concept: 'more'.
Rather than just one city (London) Capital North is a team of cities, a unit. More opportunities, more prospects, more jobs, more culture; more variety.
This new idea really appealed to us, as it actually felt like it much more meaningful and appropriate, as well as having lots of opportunities for copywriting and language use.
