One of the most important guests in the history of NBC ’s “Tonight Show” isn’t a movie or TV star and probably won’t play any games on set with the host.

Ford Motor Co. will have a hard-to-miss role in the program Monday evening, which will show an episode taped at the Detroit Opera House filled with an audience of Ford employees and partners. Home viewers are likely to see video segments threaded across the episode with Fallon nodding to the automaker and a new campaign, says Lisa Materazzo, Ford’s chief marketing officer.

“What we like to do is tell stories, and Jimmy is the same,” says the marketing executive. “He does it in such creative ways that it really lands well with the audience.”

Advertisers have been asking late-night hosts for years to do live commercials on their popul

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