The First Walkman Ads

Argos was a bit too downmarket for Sony to supply back then but by Spring 1981 they had the Binatone Hip-Fi Cloneman. I'm sure @autoreverser has one of these

I have read that in 1981 it was the best selling personal stereo in the U.K. Quite believable when it was the only one being sold by a popular retailer with over 100 shops all around the country.

When it came to headphones there hadn't been much change. No market for lightweight headphones when people were just buying their first personal stereo, which came with them.
Something I forgot to mention about headphones is that they always came with about 9 feet / 3m of cord given their expected use in the home. My sister had a pair with an in-line volume control and mono adapter to use with her 12" TV.

 

The "It's a revolution on the streets" ad is a great one. It is a perfect example how advertising takes a social idea like freedom and converts it to freedom to buy. This one takes revolution and converts it to technological as well as social change: instead of marching together on a rally everyone buys a walkman. Instead of group listening to a boombox everyone gets their personalized tune. Walkman was the best thing that happened to the ruling class this side of shooting into united disgrunled people. Also, late 1970s - early 1980s coincided with deregulation of radio, with creation of clear channel, with homogenization of broadcast, so personalized prerecorded music was a reprieve both from loud ghetto blasters as well as from corporatized radio.

I bet anyone who was carrying a boombox around that time, hated this photo. There are only white people on that proverbial porch, including a guy with attache case. This is a yuppie culture marker, this is a move of a white rook in the black and white game.

The first headphones I saw were my mother's, she worked as a radio mechanic. They were bulky, but I did not mind. Then I saw IEMs from my grand-grandmother's hearing aid - they looked almost identical to today's IEM's, with rubber piece penetrating deep in ear canal, I hated them then, I hate IEMs now.