Samsung Canada launched its Galaxy S4 with three concurrent live events in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto last night, featuring live bands like Walk off the Earth and Dragonette in each city and a hologram of Feist (pictured, right) playing in all three cities at once. Work on the events was done with Mosaic.

Ken Price, director of mobile, Samsung Canada, tells MiC that while the brand has been kicking off new products with events in Toronto as of late, like bringing Psy in for the launch of its Galaxy Note II earlier this year, this one was expanded to go cross-country.

A media buy from Starcom promoting the new phone’s launch includes TV spots from 72andSunny and digital from Cheil and will launch in May, says Price. Creative in the campaign will target a larger demo than usual, looking to reach people outside its typical tech-savvy audience. The spots will still feature Samsung’s recent “Next Big Thing” copy, as well as new work that reaches people across life’s different experiences.

“This campaign is less about the features of the phone and more about how the device can help people in their life experiences,” he says. “Phones have moved up the hierarchy of needs where if you’re away from it you feel disconnected from friends and family. We are largely in a replacement market with phones now, because a large percentage of people have a device already so we are looking more at getting people to move over to ours.”

Photo (top right): courtesy of Samsung Canada