McDonald’s and Barclaycard are gearing up to launch NFC awareness campaigns aimed at spurring the adoption of contactless payment technology, according to MarketingWeek.

Barclaycard, which holds the highest share (71%) of the UK contactless market, reports that contactless transactions have doubled in the last year, but are still “nowhere near” where they want to be, according to Tom Gregory, Barclaycard’s head of digital payments.

Gregory says the company will launch multiple integrated marketing campaigns that will promote NFC as a cash replacement, but in order to affect real change in consumer behavior more merchants, mobile manufacturers, other credit card brands and Google need to come together to push the technology.

McDonald’s, which currently offers NFC payments in restaurants across the UK, plans to raise awareness by adding signs to its checkout registers that instruct the customer to use the contactless feature on their cards and phones.

According to a recent YouGov study, only 8% of Britons are aware that they can use contactless technology at the restaurant chain.

RIM, maker of BlackBerry smart phones, is also said to be working on an educational campaign to be launched in the coming months, declaring 2012 to be the “year of NFC.”

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