powerpoint training in - Placeholders

I am working within the slide and title masters and don't need the placeholders (ie date, page number etc) where they are automatically placed, but I would like to use them for other texts on another part of the page - for example, on the title slide for the placeholder to be on the top right handside and in the other slides for there to be a box running up the left handside. I have moved the placeholders and formatted them how I want and they look fine in the masters but when I go in to the actual presentation there aren't any boxes available! Is it possible to do this? What am I doing wrong? Basically, as with the heading on each page I want to be able to add the text to these placeholders throughout the presentation without having to insert additional text boxes. Can you help?!