In most contexts, "provenance" refers to something's chain of ownership.
This term has typically, throughout history, been used to refer to a piece of artwork's historical ownership, showing who originally bought it from the artist, who bought it from that first owner, who bought it next, and so on.
On a practical level, this helps establish what art is real—in the sense that it was produced by the artist it seems to have been made by, rather than by a skilled forger—while also adding perceptual prestige to the object and (sometimes) imbuing it with additional value.
That potential additional value stems from the assumption that if respected collectors saw something special in a piece of artwork—enough to add it to their collection—that artwork must be good; it must be worth something.
Whether or not a piece is actually good is a matter of personal taste and preference, but whether a piece is valued on the fine art market often has as much to do with this chain of custody as with the piece itself and how it fits into the larger, contemporary art collection paradigm.
Provenance has, in recent decades, also become a tool for marketers hoping to imbue a product with additional, perceived value.
If you're trying to make a product stand out on a shelf of practically identical products, tapping into the history of the company making one of those products might set it apart from its competitors.
If the company has been in business for over a century, for instance, you might design its packaging in such a way that it seems to be part of a grand tradition of well-made, groundbreaking innovations.
You might also contextualize a product you're selling as being the most recent of a lineage of similar items.
The Italian company Moleskine didn't invent the black notebook with rounded corners, off-white paper, an elastic band to hold it closed, and a pocket in the back, but it did appropriate the concept and—through its marketing materials—has associated its notebook offerings with traditional notebooks of this kind (and the well-known names—artists, scientists, politicians—who used and loved those older notebooks).
Provenance as a marketing tool is also oft-used by winemakers to set their products apart from other wines, describing the terrain and climate and historical importance of the regions in which some of their grapes are grown, even if these elements only have the loosest-possible association with the end product: a beverage that may be heavily processed off-site and made from grapes grown in other regions, as well.
Provenance, like any branding exercise, can add perceived value to an object or idea, including products and services, but also ideologies, political parties, and so on.
This is accomplished mostly through association—we link a product with a historical figure or object, perhaps—and that may trigger our desire to also be associated with those historical things or people.
These associations can be psychologically and socially satisfying, though we almost always pay more for such associations, all else being equal, because of the effort required to track or fabricate them, and because of the marketing investment required to communicate said associations.
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