The article deals with the topic of family-owned and inherited companies, which are perceived by customers as being more "traditional" or "old-fashioned". The paragraph your phrase was from in the article starts and ends as follows: "The second advantage of family companies’ strong internal culture is a distinctive set of stories that they can tell their customers...And family companies are increasingly using their ownership as a selling point in its own right." The last sentence of the paragraph is therefore trying to convey that the marketing and selling of a firm's products or services to customers can be directly aided by the stories about its family's ownership structure. An example would be Ford motor company, which runs commercials about the continued ownership of the company by descendants of Henry Ford (it's only 2% but that's enough to be a controlling stake apparently...see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_family_tree) Another good example can be found on Bacardi rum's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/sOQYH9mNFTc