I don't really watch Netflix. Or TV in general, honestly.
The last thing I properly binged was Emily in Paris, and that was only because I was injured and bed-bound and it just HAPPENED to have come out that week (don't judge me). But even I can't escape Heated Rivalry.
The Canadian romance series has everyone in an absolute chokehold. My feed is full of it. Vogue is publishing articles titled "Post Heated Rivalry - Should Fashion Hit the Ice?" and "39 Thoughts I Had While Watching Heated Rivalry" (that's a lot of thoughts).
Imagine my surprise when I found out they barely marketed it.
Every season, there's One Show To Rule Them All. Last year it was White Lotus. This season - Heated Rivalry. But unlike most cultural juggernauts, this one didn't get there through massive ad campaigns or influencer partnerships or billboards in Times Square.
CBC ran what they called a "minimal marketing campaign." Basically, they spent almost nothing on traditional advertising. And yet, the show went from 30 million streaming minutes in its first week to 324 million by week four.
That's a 10x increase through pure word of mouth.
How? They let the content do the work. And more importantly, they trusted their audience to do it for them.
Heated Rivalry is based on a beloved romance novel by Rachel Reid. The book already had a passionate fan base before the show even existed. And those fans? They campaigned HARD for global distribution.
When CBC initially planned a Canada-only release, fans organised. It was like a freaking rally. They petitioned, made noise on social media. And damn did it work - HBO Max picked it up for international distribution.
The fan base essentially co-marketed the show before it had even aired.
This is marketing genius, honestly. Because you really can't buy that kind of authentic enthusiasm. Pre-existing fans became unpaid evangelists. And their genuine excitement was way more convincing than any ad campaign could have been.
Originally, Heated Rivalry was scheduled for February 2026. But CBC saw the early buzz and moved the release date FORWARD to late November 2025 to capitalise on holiday viewing season. Smart move.
Then the show delivered. Episode 5 became only the second TV episode ever to get a perfect 10.0 on IMDB (the first was Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias").
That kind of organic viral moment is marketing gold. You literally cannot manufacture it.
Clips started circulating on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. Fashion magazines started writing about it. Even the NHL commissioner binged it (and apparently loved it, which is both hilarious and perfect). The show became unavoidable not because of billboards, but because people genuinely couldn't stop talking about it.
So, what can we learn from this?
The Heated Rivalry playbook is basically: trust your product, mobilise your existing fans, time it right, and let organic buzz do the heavy lifting. Seems simple, right?
In an era where we're bombarded with ads for everything, sometimes the most effective marketing is actually... less marketing. When something is genuinely good and there's already a passionate audience ready to champion it, your job isn't to shout louder than everyone else.
It's to get out of the way and let the content speak.
Obviously, this doesn't work for everything.
You need a quality product. You need some level of built-in audience or cultural relevance. And you need to be strategic about timing and distribution.
But when those elements align? You get a show that dominates the cultural conversation without spending millions on ads. You get Vogue articles and perfect IMDB scores and everyone from your hairdresser to the NHL commissioner talking about it.
You get Heated Rivalry. The show that proved sometimes the best marketing strategy is to create something people genuinely can't shut up about, then step back and let them do the talking.
Mwah, 10/10, no notes from me.
-Sophie Randell, Writer
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