Parasitic Marketing

There was an article in the WSJ last week entitled "Marketing Strategy: Buddy Up". The gist of the article was the value of small companies sharing marketing campaigns with larger companies. There is an opportunity for synergy when teaming up with a bigger company, a friendly strategic alliance.

When I was with Blue Orb, we created what I called parasitic marketing, where we would attach our little promotional efforts to a larger host company. We hoped that our small diversion would go unnoticed by the sponsor of the bigger event or if noticed would not be worth the effort to make us go away.

Does anyone have other examples of parasitic marketing? Any problems with the ethics?