MUMBAI: It will be raining ads on Sony Entertainment Television when Oscar nominated Lagaan airs on the channel on 27 October.

One among the many top brands that have bought airtime during Lagaan is Hyundai Santro, which will premiere the third and final in its latest series of ads. "Lagaan has not surprisingly roped in many advertisers," says SET India senior V-P sales, Abraham Thomas.

Santro's latest commercial, the third part of the sequel to the ads currently on air will feature actors Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta together for the first time. In the earlier ads, both actors have featured separately.

"So far there are 12 official sponsors for the movie including Tata Indica, Pepsodent, Sony Music Systems, Thompsons and Hero Honda, to name a few," informs Thomas.

Post production delays, have however, put paid to another innovative idea. The latest Close Up ad for its new lemon-mint variant was slated for its premiere during the Lagaan telecast, but has had to be postponed by a week. The interesting angle to this was that both the Close Up commercial and Lagaan have had Ashutosh Gowariker in the director's chair.

There is another curious coincidence to the ad put out by JW Thompson (formerly Hindustan Thompson Associates - HTA). While Gowariker is behind the camera for this one, he was in front of it and had actually featured in a Close Up ad early in his career.

Gowariker does have a walk on role though in the 30-second commercial, which has veteran actor Anupam Kher in the lead. A switch in generation as well as the brand has always focused on youth.