In PPT 2003 and earlier, you can't add placeholders. However, this is can be
done (fairly easily) in PPT 2007.
If you want to fake placeholders in earlier versions, you will need to
create a slide that has the extra text box and copy and paste that slide
instead of inserting a new slide based on a master.

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Kathy Jacobs, Microsoft MVP OneNote and PowerPoint
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint
Get PowerPoint and OneNote information at www.onppt.com
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
>I need a slide layout with title, subtitle, bulletted text, and a content
> icon. I used one of the standard layouts that had everything but the
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> it? I looked to write a macro to attach to the text box object but this
> option is not available outside of slide view.