diff --git a/lib/ansible/parsing/splitter.py b/lib/ansible/parsing/splitter.py
index 0adb4bf84b..2e27d4b6f3 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/parsing/splitter.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/parsing/splitter.py
@@ -261,6 +261,6 @@ def split_args(args):
     # If we're done and things are not at zero depth or we're still inside quotes,
     # raise an error to indicate that the args were unbalanced
     if print_depth or block_depth or comment_depth or inside_quotes:
-        raise AnsibleParserError("failed at splitting arguments, either an unbalanced jinja2 block or quotes: {}".format(args))
+        raise AnsibleParserError(u"failed at splitting arguments, either an unbalanced jinja2 block or quotes: {0}".format(args))
 
     return params