On Wednesday morning, the Adelaide Advertiser reported the two clubs had agreed to terms which would have seen Power midfielder Shaun Burgoyne cross to the Hawks for Brown and pick No.9 in next month's NAB AFL Draft.
News of the potential trade was met by backlash from Hawthorn supporters and prompted Kennett to hit the airwaves.
Kennett denied Hawthorn had put Brown's name forward and suggested contact had been initiated by the Power.
The Hawks also said in a statement that Port Adelaide had made Brown an offer, which the 26-year-old declined.
However, Rohde said the Power had been "encouraged" to contact Brown to gauge his interest in relocating to Adelaide.
"The websites are saying that Choco (coach Mark Williams) rang Campbell up out of the blue, but that wasn’t the case," Rohde told Adelaide radio station 5AA.
"Mark is in America so he's not able to defend himself, but the only reason we were talking to Campbell Brown was because we were encouraged to do so.
"There were a group of players that were untouchable and if you look at Hawthorn's list you can figure out the most obvious ones. Other than that they were prepared to trade anyone off their list.
"We probably had a preference for a couple of players that were on Hawthorn's untouchable list, but it got to the start of this week and they made it pretty clear they weren’t willing to trade a couple of players we were chasing. So we turned our attention to Campbell Brown and made contact with him."
Rohde said he wasn't aware Brown was off-limits until he heard Kennett's comments on Melbourne radio station SEN.
"We thought we were getting pretty close [to getting a deal done] yesterday, but we're probably not as close now as we were," Rohde said.
"You'd have to ask Hawthorn [why Kennett denied Brown had been offered as trade bait] but certainly the communication within the Hawthorn footy club maybe hasn't been great.
"Jeff Kennett has now come out and gone on record as saying Campbell won't be traded, so I'm assuming that means he's not going to be traded.
"We'll have to find another way to get the deal done."
Hawthorn's preparedness to trade Brown came as a surprise to many, including the player.
"He (Brown) didn't know anything about it up until we made contact with his management. I think he was surprised when we made first contact, that's for sure," Rohde said.
"He was pretty shocked at the start, but whether or not we could have convinced him to come over, I'm not sure.
"The indications were that he was reluctant to come, but we didn't even get to square one because Hawthorn has come out and said he's unavailable."
Rohde admitted the miscommunication wouldn't help the negotiations for Burgoyne, but said Hawthorn was still likely to land him with the prospective involvement of a third party.
He also confirmed Port Adelaide was on the verge of securing Richmond forward Jay Schulz.
Youngster Mitch Farmer could form the other end of that deal, with the defender offered a two-year contract by the Tigers.
