Chapter Ten · Busch Beer advertising · Late 1970s onward
Head for the Mountains
Among the most recognizable advertising campaigns associated with Busch Beer was the iconic “Head for the Mountains” campaign.
Cold mountain streams. Pine forests. The unmistakable "Busch" call echoing off the peaks. "Head for the Mountains" gave a working man's beer an aspirational landscape, and it stayed on the air for many years — one of the longest-running beer advertising campaigns of its era.
Family accounts credit Monty with developing the concept and campaign. It distilled everything he believed about marketing: don't sell the liquid, sell the escape. Don't list ingredients, paint a place people want to go.
Don't sell the liquid. Sell the escape.
Why it endured
Great campaigns are ideas, not executions — and "Head for the Mountains" was an idea sturdy enough to survive decades of changing media, jingle updates, and new creative teams.
Alongside the Busch Clash, it stands as one of the two most public monuments to Monty's Anheuser-Busch years.