Advertising upheavals are afoot ahead of the inaugural Spring upfronts, as technology companies and brands scramble to capitalize on an industry rapidly recovering from the anguishes of the past year. Billions of dollars are on the line at the second virtual upfronts presentations, scheduled for May, and the likes of NBCUniversal and Roku – two of the greatest advocates for driving disruptive new ad formats – are already out in force. However, any initial excitement quickly dissipated after we brushed away the superficial wording to reveal nothing but the usual ambiguities. First up, Roku revealed its new advertising brand studio this week, a place for producing new creative ad formats and TV programming which has ambitions of trashing the traditional…