Live Commercials Return to TV

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As Garmin was working on its TV plan for the second quarter last year, the company issued a challenge for itself and its network partners to come up with new and creative ideas to get the GPS maker’s message across. NBC sales and marketing presented a rather novel proposal in response. “To NBC’s credit, they were like, ‘What if we do a live commercial? If you guys are open to that, we’ll try pitching that idea to The Tonight Show and NBC executives,” Garmin media and sponsorship manager Steve Lovell recounts.

The idea was green lit, and last June a live commercial for Garmin ran on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in the form of a 45-second skit starring the show’s announcer, John Melendez, as a doctor diagnosing men who refuse to ask for directions with an affliction called direction disorder, then prescribing them Garmin GPS devices as a cure.

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